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INAUGURATION 



OF THE 



DUDLEY OBSERVATORY, 






AT 



ALBANY, AUGUST 28, 1856. 



(^<- 



> 



ALBANY: 

CHARLES VAN BENTHUYSEN'S PRINT. 
1856. 




QB27- 



EULOGY 



ON THE 



HON. CHARLES E. DUDLEY. 



BY WASHINGTON HUNT. 



EULOGY. 



The inauguration of two institutions of science 
at the capitol of our state — yesterday the Geologi- 
cal Hall, to day the Dudley Observatory — is an 
event of no ordinary interest. Who does not 
rejoice in contemplating a spectacle, so honorable 
to the country, so cheering to the friends of learn- 
ing and social progress ? When viewed in con- 
nection with the proceedings of the last week — 
the welcome presence and instructive delibe- 
rations of the American Association for the 
advancement of science; the occasion assumes 
a national dignity and importance, and deserves 
to be celebrated as an epoch in the history of 
American science. 

The gradual advancement of our country in 
intellectual culture becomes an object of pro- 
found interest to every mind capable of appre- 
ciating the influence of knowledge upon the 
happiness and destiny of mankind. Every new 
agency by which the boundaries of science are 



6 

enlarged and the light of philosophy more widely 
diftused, is welcomed with gratitude as a tribute 
to civilization, and the revelation of a latent 
power to gain fresh conquests in the domains of 
truth. The State of New- York, true to the spirit 
of the motto inscribed on her shield, has been 
distinguished from an early period in our history 
for enlightened efforts to elevate the moral and 
intellectual condition of her people. We point 
with pride to the magnificent works by Avhich 
physical barriers have been surmounted, inter- 
course unfettered, commerce expanded, and all 
the sources of internal prosperity warmed into 
life and activity; and we honor the memory of 
the statesmen by whose w^isdom and energy 
these grand results were accomplished. But be 
it remembered that while thus securing a rapidity 
of material growth and progress to which history 
scarcely affords a parallel, we have not been in- 
different to the moral and intellectual elements 
whose harmonious development constitutes the 
true glory of a state, and entitles it to rank 
among refined and cultivated nations. 

By judicious and liberal legislation we have 
perfected a system of popular education which 
brings the means of mental improvement within 



the reach of all the children of the common- 
wealth, even the most obscure and destitute. 
Institutions designed to advance the higher 
branches of science and learning have been 
wisely multiplied, and encouraged from time to 
time by endowments from the public resources. 
But legislation alone is not sufficient to impart 
vitality and vigor to a system of education, how- 
ever perfect the skill displayed in its theory and 
structure. To ensure success individual aid and 
co-operation are indispensable. Happily for the 
cause of learning this important requisite has 
not been withheld. Generous and enlightened 
men have stepped forward with an ardor, which 
cannot be too gratefully acknowledged, to second 
the efforts of the state, and give effect to its 
aspirations for higher intellectual development. 
I consider it alike fortunate for the welfare of 
the state, and honorable to its fame, that here 
at the capitol, in this ancient city of Albany, 
we have had a body of cultivated scholars 
and munificent citizens, of whom any country 
might be proud, zealously devoted to the cause 
of letters and science, and active in promoting 
the increase and diffusion of knowledge. By 
their public spirit and well directed exertions, 



they have excited an interest in the work of 
education which is already yielding a rich and 
precious harvest. To them are we indebted for 
the first foundations of an university designed to 
embrace within the ample sphere of its opera- 
tions the entire circle of scientific enquiries — an 
institution which is generally conceded to be the 
great intellectual need of our country. From 
the progress already made in this design, we may 
safely anticipate its complete success at no 
distant period. It is truly a noble effort, worthy 
of generous minds which find their highest 
happiness in promoting the welfare of their 
fellow-men. I trust they will not grow weary 
in the work until they shall have consummated 
the great object of their labors. Regarding them 
as public benefactors in the most exalted sense, 
I must avail myself of this opportunity to 
express to them my gratitude for the benefits 
they have conferred upon society. 

My chief aim in appearing before you on the 
present occasion is to offer a grateful tribute to 
the memory of one who has gone to his rest, and 
whose name stands conspicuous among the 
names of the honored dead who, by their virtues 
and services, adorned the historic annals of our 



State. Charles E. Dudley was a man whose 
sterling merits would have ensured a high place 
among the first citizens of Greece or Rome, in 
the virtuous age of either republic, when integ- 
rity and patriotism were the only passport to 
popular eminence. 

Before proceeding to enlarge upon his charac- 
ter, permit me to observe that he was the friend 
of my youth, and that many years of intercourse, 
during which it was my good fortune to receive 
numerous proofs of his kindness, gave him a 
strong hold upon my affections. I was indebted 
to him for wise counsels, for generous patronage, 
and above all for a bright example of manliness 
and honor which animated his whole life and 
conduct. The memory of these personal rela- 
tions revives in my breast feelings of gratitude 
and devotion which time cannot extinguish. Mr. 
Dudley's career presented a beautiful illustration 
of the elevating tendency of our free American 
institutions. Nature had endowed him with a 
clear, vigorous intellect, and high moral suscep- 
tibilities. These characteristics were strength- 
ened by timely culture and the purest social 
influences. In early life he enjoyed unusual 
advantages for foreign travel, and became con- 



10 

versant with the manners and institutions of 
other countries. The principles of commerce, 
in its grand relations to the public wealth and 
prosperity, and as a peaceful agency of human 
progress and civilization, became his favorite 
subject of investigation. While his acquirements 
were varied and extensive, he made himself 
specially familiar with the history of commerce 
and navigation in ancient and modern times; 
with the causes which affect their growth and 
decline, with the practical working of the com- 
mercial systems adopted by different nations; 
and his rich stores of information on these 
subjects enabled him to render important service 
to the commercial interests of his own country. 
His attainments in this department of political 
economy, and a remarkable faculty for discrimi- 
nation in deducing from general theories safe 
practical conclusions, with reference to the actual 
condition of affairs, qualified him to discuss some 
of the most difficult questions of commercial 
policy with a convincing clearness of elucidation. 
In my intercourse with the world, I have rarely 
met a statesman whose knowledge on this class 
of subjects was more complete, or whose observa- 
tions were more comprehensive and profound. 



11 



^ After devoting some years to the pursuits of 
commerce, in which his labors were rewarded 
by abundant success, Mr. Dudley retired from 
active business and became a citizen of Albany, 
where he was allied by marriage with one of its 
most respected and influential families. Among 
the people of this city, where he passed the 
remainder of his days, and where his honorable 
discharge of duty in every relation of life made 
him " observed of all observers," it would seem 
unnecessary to dwell upon the virtues which 
adorned his character, and elicited repeated 
expressions of public regard and confidence. 

In a community so appreciative of merit, it 
was impossible that such a man should remain 
in tranquil retirement. From time to time he 
was called by his fellow-citizens to stations of 
eminent dignity and importance, and he never 
failed to discharge his trust with fidelity and 
capacity. He was chosen more than once to 
preside over the municipal administration of this 
city, as its chief magistrate ; and in this position 
he rendered services which are still remembered 
with gratitude. As a member of the Senate of 
New- York he identified his name with beneficent 
measures which have contributed largely to 



12 

llie inteUectaal pn^iess and mateziai prosperity 
rf the State. In him our system of internal 
improTements fonnd a firm and enlightened 
sappmtej. He ^ras an effectbre adrocate of the 
Ene Canal at a tune ^rhen that masnificent 
undertaking w^as denounced as TJaionary^ and 
its ccnnpletion placed in jeopardy hy a strong 
r rrmined of^io^tion. But 1 regard it as 
1.15 i.:^\ est merit as a legislator for the State, 
T :' 1^ - ?> a zealous and constant liriend of the 
7 It : >n. Ererr measure calculated 

: ~ T :: ^ _ ^ - >iiigs of knowledge, whether 
by the ex ^ „ : : : . imon school system, 

or the ci^<xZ^^ii of n- / _^ "^^ns of learning, 
receiwed fiom hie v - weriul snp- 

pnt. 

At a aaohseqaent period 3Ir. Dudley was elected 
to a aeat in the Senate of the United States : a 
statiMi ^which .le riled with h<mor to himself 
and adTantage " :he country. He was one of 
the most digx: and respected members of 

that body a: i ^ len Clay and Webster and 
Galhonn gave lusiie lo me aenatoiial office. On 
q[iiestions affecting the commercial interests of 
the country, his thorough knowledge of the laws 
of liade gare an impcMtant wei^t to his opinions. 



13 



As a Senator, he was distinguished among his 
peers for ripe intelligence, true patriotism, and a 
spirit of candor which inspired confidence in the 
rectitude of his motives and the soundness of 
his judgment. It frequently occurs that these 
sterling qualities are of more value to the country 
in its legislative bodies, than the most brilliant 
displays of impassioned eloquence. It was Mr. 
Dudley's fortune to act a prominent part on the 
stage of public events, in times of intense politi- 
cal excitement. Though decided in his opinions, 
adhering always to his avowed principles with 
unyielding firmness, party spirit never ventured 
to assail the integrity of his conduct, or to ques- 
tion the purity of his intentions. He cherished 
warm political attachments, yet was he no 
partizan, in the ordinary sense. If he loved 
Csesar much, he loved Rome more, and regarded 
the welfare of his country as paramount to the 
interests of any party. 

On several occasions he exhibited a lofty spirit 
of independence, in defiance of the most power- 
ful political influences. In every relation, public 
and private, he was governed by a controlling 
sense of justice, and discharged his duty with 
that true moral courage which rejects all fear, 



14 

except the fear of doing wToag. His personal 
deportment exhibited that blending of dignity 
and courtesy Trhich inspires a mingled sentiment 
of homage and aflection. In all the intercourse 
of life he displayed a refined sense of propriety. 
Naturally modest and retiring, he avoided no 
duty, and shrank from no responsibiUty Tvhich a 
statesman or a citizen can be justly required to 
assome. He sought no prominence, but accepted 
the honors T^^hich were conferred upon him as a 
trust for the benefit of his fellow-men. 

This is a brief and imperfect outline of the 
character and career of Charles E. Dudley. 
Fifteen years have passed away since he de- 
parted this life, loved by all who knew him and 
most by those who knew^ him best, honored by 
his fellow-citizens, and mourned by the country 
Arhich he had so faithfully served. By the bless- 
ing of Provideijce, his beloved and venerable 
widoTT, the partner of his joys and sorrows, and 
the object of his fondest affections, still sur^^ves. 
To her bereaved spirit, during the long period of 
her loneliness, the recollection of his virtues and 
life-long devotion to her happiness, and the hope 
of reunion in the realms of immortal felicity 
have been a source of unfailing consolation. 



» ' 



15 

" Like lamps in eastern sepulchres, 
Amid my heart's deep gloom. 
Affection sheds its holiest light 
Upon my husband's tomb- 
And as those lamps, if brought once more 
To upper air, grow dim. 
So my soul's love is cold and dead 
Unless it glow for him." 

To her has been reserved the pious office of 
rearing an appropriate monument to his memory. 
How generously, how nobly this sacred duty has 
been performed, will be recorded and remembered 
during all future time ! The recollection of her 
constancy and munificence will be cherished by 
coming generations until the earth shall give up 
its dead. Her tribute of affection to a departed 
husband is a graceful offering upon the altar of 
science and truth. In preparing a sepulchre and 
raising a tomb to perpetuate his memory, she has 
built an edifice which points to the heavens, and 
created an instrumentality which shall unfold 
the mysteries of the spheres and display the 
wonders of the firmament to mortal vision. By 
rendering this suitable and deserved honor to 
his fame, she has immortalized her own. The 
Dudley Observatory will forever associate the 
names of both with the highest glories of 
science, and the most exalted manifestations of 
beneficence. 



REMARKS 



BY 



DR. B.Al GOULD. 



REMARKS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The duty has been huposed upon nie, by those 
whose wishes are sufficient commands, and whom 
it would be more than ingratitude to refuse, of 
presenting to you a simple statement of the 
efforts which have been recently made toward 
the establishment of the Observatory of Albany; 
a temple of science which is not only, as we 
hope, to render the name of this munificent and 
hospitable city as classic as it is dear to all our 
hearts, but at the same time to enshrine the 
memory of a noble name, and of an affection far 
more worthily expressed than that of an Arte- 
misia. History tells of Mausolus, a monarch 
remarkable for his exalted character and his per- 
sonal beauty. His stricken widow, after falling 
for a while into the deepest affliction, rose finally 
above her sorrow, and reared that splendid monu- 



20 

ment known as a Wonder of the world. She 
gave to it her husband's name, and even now, 
when thousands of years have passed away, the 
Mausoleum is a word familiar to your ears. But 
a more than Artemisia is here — a more than Mau- 
soleum crowns yon verdant summit, from within 
whose walls shall go out light and truth unto the 
nations. Such deeds as these demand no com- 
mon tongue to do them honor — and you know 
whose tongue is enlisted in their praise. Nor 
will I forget it. Be mine the simple task to tell 
the simple tale, and let the eloquence of truth be 
its simple ornament. 

The aspirations of our countrymen for some 
high educational seminary in the land, that 
shall receive American youth where the col- 
leges leave them, and afford the same facilities 
for the highest culture in specialities that the 
colleges offer for the general acquisition of infor- 
mation, refinement and taste ; — and which shall 
supply to our own young men the combined 
sources of knowledge, which they have hitherto 
been compelled to seek on the other side of the 
ocean, have within a few years found expression 
in various places; but nowhere has the effort to 
bring the aspirations to fulfilment been so vigor- 



21 

vous as in this city of Albany. During the sum- 
mer of 1852 several public meetings were held 
here in reference to this great end, and perhaps 
it is not too much to believe that, had not the 
extraordinary political excitement of the suc- 
ceeding winter suddenly thwarted the plans of 
the friends of a national university, the legisla- 
ture of this State, assembled in yonder capitol, 
would have enacted into a law that bill, which 
they had already discussed, and which would 
have given to this capital city a high pre-emi- 
nence as the western home of science, letters and 
art. But the effort has not been fruitless, and as 
a part of that great scheme which may, let us 
hope, yet be carried into effectual reality, it was 
resolved to found an Astronomical Observatory; 
and the appeals to the liberality of individuals 
met with a ready and cheerful response. Three 
gentlemen, Messrs. Thomas W. Olcott, Wm. H. 
De Witt, and Ezra P. Prentice, immediately con- 
tributed il,000 each, and Mr. De Witt subse- 
buently increased his subscription to $1,500. 
Genl. Stephen Van Rensselaer contributed seve- 
ral acres of valuable land as an appropriate site 
for the building. After this, Mrs. Blandina Dud- 
ley — a name now known to you all as synony- 



9*> 



mous with munificence and patriotisni, subscri- 
bed the sum of $12,000 in token of her respect 
for the memory of a devoted husband: and in 
the act of incorporation, the Institution received 
by vote of the Trustees, as a testimony of their 
gratitude, the name of Dudley Obser\^atory. Mrs. 
Dudley mentions it as among her most pleasing 
reflections, that her distinguished, excellent and 
affectionate husband cherished during his life- 
time a special interest in this department of sci- 
ence, and that no appropriation could be made 
by her more consonant with what his tastes and 
washes would undoubtedly have been. The im- 
pulse thus given to the plan, prompted to still 
greater interest : and many more gentlemen came 
forward with contributions until the total sum of 
$25,000 was secured, with which to erect a 
building on a larger scale than had been origi- 
nally contemplated. By the act of incorporation 
the government of the institution is vested in a 
Board of Trustees, of which Gen. Stephen Van 
Rensselaer is President: and in order that the 
building might be in all respects accordant with 
the present demands of astronomy, the plans 
were drawn by Messrs. A\ alter & Wilson, imder 
the direction and supers^ision of Prof Mitchel, of 



23 



X^incinnati, a gentleman who needs no encomium 
here. The erection of the building in conformity 
with these plans was intrusted to the supervision 
of Prof. George R. Perkins, then a resident of 
Albany, who gave to it his unremitting attention. 
The building is in the formi of a cross, of 84 feet 
front by 72 in depth, — a tower with revolving 
cupola rising from the centre, for the reception 
of the heliometer, or an equatorial telescope, 
should one hereafter be obtained. The central 
portion is 28 feet square ; the east and west 
rooms, which are for the meridian instruments, 
are each about 23 feet square, but large semi- 
cylindrical projections of 6 feet radius are now 
building, both north and south, for the reception 
and protection of collimator piers. The north 
wing, which is about 40 feet square, contains a 
room for the library, together with four small 
rooms, two of which were intended for the use 
of computers. The cylindrical tower is 22 feet 
in diameter, revolving upon iron balls. 

The foundations of this edifice were laid in the 
spring of 1853, the building completed within the 
year, and the charge of the whole enterprise 
entrusted to Prof Mitchel. But circumstances 
rendering him unable to take charge of the 



24 

Observatory at that time, the building remained 
for two or three years unoccupied. Still the seed 
already planted had swelled, germinated, and 
taken deep root. It has been said that still waters 
run deepest ; and while the Observatory building 
sat placidly upon the beautiful Van Rensselaer 
hill, like an uncrowned queen, the hearts of the 
citizens of Albany were expanding to the recep- 
tion of that great affection for learning, science 
and patriotic effort, which characterizes them 
before the world to-day. The Law-School of the 
University of Albany was organized, and the 
Medical School entered upon its new life ; — each 
of these, like the Observatory, forming in name 
and nature, if not in organization, a part of what 
we trust may one day become the great National 
American University. 

Thus stood affairs one year ago, at the Provi- 
dence meeting of the American Association. And 
now I come to the mention of a name whose sym- 
pathetic influence calls up all the generous feel- 
ings of the heart, a name which I cannot lightly 
utter, for it belongs to a man whom to know is 
to love, and to mention is but to praise. It is his 
whose agency is evident in all good works ; whose 
thoughtful ness is conspicuous in all kindly ac- 



25 

> tions ; his, to whom is in great part due the 
establishment of many a noble institution in this 
city of his adoption and his love, forming an 
imperishable monument of his public spirit; his, 
whose eftbrts were among the most untiring 
in behalf of the University, his, whose mild and 
gentle persuasiveness, whose modest, retiring, 
disinterested zeal conferred on this Associa- 
tion a priceless boon under the form of asking 
one, when he persuaded it to disregard all pre- 
cedent by returning after the expiration of a 
single lustrum, and holding now for the second 
time its session in this great-hearted capital. 
There is no need of saying that this name is 
James H. Armsby. God bless him ! for he is 
blessing God's earth, and the world is better 
that he lives in it. 

Dr. Armsby came to Providence a year ago, 
bearing the invitation from Albany that the 
Association would hold the session of 1856 in 
this city. Prof Peirce was about the same time 
communicating to astronomers the results of his 
investigations relative to the determination of 
the longitude by means of occupations of the 
Pleiades, and he dwelt upon the great need of 
fine and precise measurements of the relative 



positions of the numerous stars of this group. 
The Superintendent of the Coast Survey had 
approved this plan and adopted it, as essential in 
his work. This was enough for Dr. Arnisby; he 
saw in it a means of usefuhiess for the Dudley 
Observatory, and on learning that a heliometer 
was the instrument most appropriate for the class 
of observations required, he guaranteed upon his 
own responsibility that Albany would provide 
one, although none yet existed within the United 
States. He immediately hastened to Newport 
to confer with that friend of all noble enterprises, 
the Hon. John V. L. Pruyn. On finding that 
Mr. Pruyn had left Newport, he returned to 
Albany, and after farther conference with Mr. 
Olcott, came back to Providence with a confir- 
mation of his guarantee, provided that the Coast 
Survey would take for a while the direction and 
control of the Observatory for its observations. 
Within ten days several meetings of public- 
spirited citizens were held in Albany, which re- 
sulted in my departure for Europe, provided with 
both the authority and the means of obtain- 
ing several instruments of the first class, and 
proud not merely of being able thus to contribute 
a humble mite towards the great work, but of the 



27 

vtale which I might tell, and of Albany, a city of 
the western continent. A scientific council was 
appointed by the Trustees, boasting the great 
names of Bache, Peirce and Henry. Mrs. Dud- 
ley increased her claim to the gratitude of the 
Observatory and of all lovers of science, by offer- 
ing $6,000, the estimated purchase-money for 
the heliometer, and a day or two after, in a 
beautiful letter to the trustees, she increased the 
donation to $8,000 — or more if needed. Two 
other gentlemen, through Thomas W. Olcott, 
Esq., became responsible for a meridian-circle, 
to be provided without any limitation as to 
expense, and Prof. Bache empowered me to order 
for the Coast-Survey, a transit-instrument of the 
best possible construction which could be devised. 
The Hon. Erastus Corning of this city subscribed 
$1,000 for providing the Observatory with time, 
and Henry Q. tiawley, Esq., volunteered to 
supply the apparatus for making and distri- 
buting gas according to the new and admiirable 
method of Mr. Aubin. This new and unexpected 
liberality was inspiring, electrifying. The occa- 
sion had no sooner arrived than the ideas and 
aspirations of Albany grew to meet it. It made 
one prouder, if possible, while standing on the 



28 

eastern continent, to call himself an American. 
The meridian-circle and the transit-instrument 
were ordered in Berlin. They are of unsurpassed 
magnitude, and of a new construction, the chief 
points of which haie already been presented to 
the physical section of the Association which 
has this day adjourned. And it was my high 
privilege on that occasion to become the vehicle 
of the public announcement, that the Trustees, 
at the instance of the Scientific Council, had 
given to that new and exquisitely beautiful 
meridian circle the honored name of Olcott, 
which is already engraved upon it in deep and 
ineffaceable characters, to endure so long as the 
instrument itself exists. Not that the name 
needed the chisel, but that the Trustees felt it 
due to themselves to find some outlet for their 
overflowing admiration and respect. These in- 
struments are probably already on their way. 
The sidereal clock was ordered in Altona, and 
is of a construction still more peculiar than that 
of the meridian instruments. It will soon be 
here and be described. The clock for mean time 
has been made by our accomplished fellow- 
citizen, Mr. Farmer, of Boston. Its pendulum has 
no weights, and needs no winding. 



29 

^ Henceforth the visitors to the Observatory will 
find, on entering the door, a deep niche in front of 
them, in which will be placed the elegant bust of 
Charles E. Dudley, sculptured by an Albany artist, 
the inimitable Palmer, and dedicated by an affec- 
tionate widow to the memory of Dudley and the 
advancement of astronomy. On the right is the 
great marble dial, three feet square, which shows 
the Observatory time, beat by the beautiful electro- 
magnetic pendulum which is swinging on the 
left, and which is not only to supply this city 
with its time correct to the fraction of a second, 
but is to flash it along the electric wire till its 
little tick be heard upon the lakes and at the 
ocean, and in all the rail-road stations lying 
between — the stay of the navigator, the guardian 
of the traveler, the safeguard of human life, and 
the promoter of human welfare on land and sea. 
An elegantly engraved marble inscription below 
it commemorates the name of the donor. 

A beautiful chronograph already completed by 
Mr. Farmer and constructed in conformity with 
his own ideas on a new and improved principle, 
is now in the Observatory, to be followed by 
at least two more. Dials in every room will 
telegraphically record the time indicated by the 



30 

normal clock iLiibedded in the massive pier be- 
low; while the Coming clock sends out the cor- 
responding mean or civil time, to the north, 
south, east and west. Of the scientific bearinsfs 
of all this. I do not speak, for my dut}' at pre- 
sent is historical alone. 

Of the heliometer nothing has as yet been told 
yon. This is the most delicate, complicated and 
difficult of construction of all the implements of 
the astronomer. There seemed but one Euro- 
pean artist to whom such a work should be 
intrusted: and the common voice of the astrono- 
mers of every nation pointed to the brothers 
Eepsold of Hamburg, the builders of the magni- 
ficent heliometer of Oxford, by far the first of 
its class. Ladies and srentlemen. the voice of 
Europe directed with one accord to Repsold. 
Not so the voice of America. Kno^^ing the splen- 
did triumphs of German and French mechanic 
art, knowing the exalted reputation that most 
worthily adorns Repsold's name — the trustees of 
the Dudley Observatory have yet confided the 
construction of this exquisitely delicate instru- 
ment to our countr}'man. and the great Dudley 
Heliometer, (for which Mrs. Dudley, who had so 
munificentlv raised her 86000 to 8S000, has now 



81 

.raised the $8000 to $14,500,) is to be built by our 
countryman Spencer, here in this city of Albany. 
Ladies and gentlemen, let me assure you, here in 
the presence of these five thousand witnesses, on 
this solemn occasion, with the full sense of the 
responsibility before the whole scientific world 
which the declaration entails, let me say to you, 
that the trustees of the Dudley Observatory will 
never regret it. We have been long indebted to 
Europe — it is time that Europe should be in- 
debted to America. Mr. Spencer has traversed 
the European continent since May last, and 
examined the chief triumphs of instrumental art. 
He has met, like his countrymen who have pre- 
ceded him, with a cordial welcome from the great 
hearts of men like Airy, Johnson, Challis, Arge- 
lander, Struve and Encke; and found the open 
hand of friendship extended to the new star in 
the terrestrial constellation. The hearts of the 
astronomers of the old world are beating with 
us to-day and now. Johnson, Argelander, Han- 
sen, Struve, Peters, know the day and hour, 
and while we think of them and their cordial 
aid and fellowship with respectful afiection, as 
we do now, they are thinking of us here, and 



32 

sending us their unseen, but not unfelt, sympa- 
thies and congratulations. 

Thus stands the Dudley Observatory to-day, 
the day of its inauguration. The enlargement of 
the building needs but a few weeks for its com- 
pletion. By that time the meridian-instruments 
will have arrived, and the clocks will be sending 
their mystic signals to all the dials, even as the 
Corning clock now ticks above my head. The 
chronographic apparatus and the helio meter have 
been ordered, and the means provided for their 
construction. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I shall be pardoned for 
so long detaining you from the eloquence which 
we all know to be in store from the golden- 
mouthed scholar, who has at so much sacrifice 
come hither to contribute the splendid offering 
of his oratory. Let me close with a single 
remark. 

The implements are now at hand. But they 
must be used. Where are the observers, the 
computers, the books, the houses ? Where is the 
Observatory to look for the means of publishing 
its results, when once attained ? Ladies and 
gentlemen, the efforts made thus far, must be 
considered but the beginning — yet as the citizens 



33 



^of this state, and of this, its capital city, have 
never thus far failed to respond to every demand 
upon their liberality, as their ideas have always 
grown to meet the emergency, let us have faith ! 
The eyes of the whole scientific world are upon 
this patriotic and noble effort. If my instincts 
lead me right, those eyes may yet be dazzled. 



REMARKS 



BY 






PROFESSOK BACHE 



REMARKS. 



Prof. Bache stated that he had been instruct- 
ed to make an announcement which, though it 
did not belong immediately to the inauguration 
of the Dudley Observatory, was, nevertheless, in- 
timately connected with the progress of Astro- 
nomical science in the United States. 

It was known to many whom he addressed, 
that the gentleman who had just closed the lucid 
and terse account of the organization and ar- 
rangements of the Dudley Observatory, had not 
many years ago returned from Europe, where he 
had been to study under Gauss, and Schumacher, 
and Encke, those methods of analysis and obser- 
vation which they had done so much to perfect, 
full of the desire to rival the institutions of the 
old world by creations in the new. He found 
observatories estabUshed here, and supplied with 
instruments, and in part with observers, and 



38 

with the means of publishing from time to time 
their observations. But no vehicle for the cur- 
rent higher astronomical science of the day, no 
journal upon the plan of that established by the 
lamented Schumacher, existed in the country. 
The importance of such a means of dissemina- 
ting the results of astroDomical research, could 
not be overrated, but its establishment must ne- 
cessarily be up-hill work. Its circulation must 
be limited to the number of those eno^affed in 
practical astronomy, as it could not by populari- 
zing tne science appeal to amateurs or to general 
readers. Such a joiurnal would, therefore, unless 
supported by public tunds, be a source of pecu- 
niary loss to its editor or pubhsher, his loss being 
the gain to the Astronomer. Such a contribu- 
tion to Astronomical science Dr. Gould desired 
to make. Though enjoying none of the emolu- 
ments 01 official position, he determined, after 
counsel with a tew friends in the American Asso- 
ciation for the advancement of science, and an 
expression of opinion by the section of Physics, 
Mathematics and x4stronomy. to commence the 
work. Thus was established the Astronomical 
Journal, published at Cambridge. The high sci- 
entific ability of the editor, and the judicious and 



39 

careful character of his supervision won for the 
journal the applause of the highest authorities 
in the United States and in Europe, and the good 
will of numerous contributors. The patronage 
of the journal was even smaller than could 
reasonably have been anticipated, no observatory 
or institution as such contributing more than 
merely by subscriptions to a very limited number 
of copies of the journal to its support. It is due 
to the friends of Dr. Gould to say, that they did 
contribute, as far as he would permit them, to 
alleviate the pecuniary burthen thus thrown 
upon him, but the independence of the editor 
always rebelled against offers of aid, and he 
preferred from his own moderate means to make 
the sacrifice required to sustain the publication. 
His editorial labor should not have been rendered 
gratuitously, but even this contribution did not 
suffice ; he was called upon to labor in other fields, 
and to devote what was thus acquired to the pro- 
gress of astronomy in his country ; an example of 
devotion to science which well merits that it 
should be dragged publicly from its concealment 
and brought to light before those assembled this 
day. This sacrifice is now to cease, a fact which 
will surprise no one more than the editor himself. 



40 

The >pirit which has done so ninch in this city 
lor astronomical science, has prompted twelve 
s:entlemen of Albanv to contribute the sum 
necessary to support the Astronomical .Journal 

for six vears. and that journal vdll be hereafter 
piib.is'ied in connection with the Dudley Obser- 
vatorv of Albanv. 



LETTER 



FROM 



MRS. DUDLEY 



i 




LETTER. 



Judge Harris said that the gentlemen who had 
preceded him had done well. The audience had 
already awarded them their praise. But he had 
a Speech to make which would excel them all. 
He was at liberty thus to speak, for the speech 
was not his own — would that it were. It was 
a speech which would embalm the name of its 
author in the hearts and memories of the whole 
scientific world. He then read the following 
letter from Mrs. Dudley : 

Albany, August 14, 1856. 

To the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory : 

Gentlemen — I scarcely need refer in a letter 
to you, to the modest beginning and gradual 
growth of the Institution over which you preside, 
and of which you are the responsible guardians. 
But we have arrived at a period in its history, 
when its inauguration gives to it, and to you, 



44 

some degree of prominence, and which must 
stamp our past elForts with weakness and incon- 
sideration, or exalt those of the future, to the 
measure of liberality necessary to certain suc- 
cess. You have a building erected, and instru- 
ments engaged of unrivalled excellence, and it 
now remains to carry out the suo^orestion of the 
x4stronomer Royal of England, in giving perma- 
nency to the establishment. The very distin- 
guished Professors, Bache, Peirce and Gould, 
state in a letter"^ which I have been permitted to 
see, that to expand this Institution to the wants 
of American Science, and the honors of a ]Na- 
tional character, will require an investment 
which will yield annually not less than 810,000. 
And these gentlemen say, in the letter referred 
to, " If the srreatness of vour giving- can rise to 
this occasion, as it has to all our previous sug- 
gestions with such unflinching magnanimity, 
we promise you our earnest and hearty co-opera- 
tion, and stake our reputations that the scientific 
success shall fill up the measure of your hopes 
and anticipations." 

For the attainment of an object so rich in 
Scientific rewards and ZSational glory, guaran- 
tied by men with reputations as exalted and 



45 

.enduring as the skies upon which they are writ- 
ten, contributions should be general, and not 
confined to an individual or a place. 

For myself, I offer as my share of the required 
endowment, the sum of $50,000, in addition to 
the advances which I have already made, and 
trusting that the name which you have given to 
the Observatory may not be considered as an 
undeserved compliment, and that it will not 
diminish the public regards, by giving to the 
Institution a seemingly individual character. 
I remain. Gentlemen, 

Your obedient servant, 

BLANDINA DUDLEY. 



* See letter at the close. 



THE 



USES OF ASTRONOMY. 



DISCOURSE, 



BY 



EDWARD EVERETT. 



TO 

MRS. BLANDINA DUDLEY. 

TO THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 

TO THE REOENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW- 

YORK, AND TO 

THE CITIZENS OF ALBANY, GENERALLY, 

THIS DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED ON THEIR INVITATION AND IN THEIR 

PRESENCE, AND PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE OF 

ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE DUDLEY 
OBSERVATORY, IS, WITH THE BEST WISHES FOR THE 

COMPLETE SUCCESS OF THAT NOBLE EN- 
TERPRISE, RESPECTFULLY 
DEDICATED BY 

EDWARD EVERETT. 

Boston, September, 1856. 



DISCOURSE. 



Fellow-citizens of Albany, — 

Assembled as we are under your auspices in this 
ancient and hospitable city, for an object indica- 
tive of a highly advanced stage of scientific 
culture, it is natural in the first place to cast an 
historical glance at the past. It seems almost 
to surpass belief, though an unquestioned fact, 
that more than a century should have passed 
away, after Cabot had discovered the coast of 
North America for England, before any know- 
ledge was gained of the noble river on which 
your city stands, and which was destined by 
Providence to determine in after-times the posi- 
tion of the commercial metropolis of the conti- 
nent. It is true that Verazzano, a bold and 
sagacious Florentine navigator in the service of 
France, had entered the Narrows in 1524, which 



52 

he describes as a very largre river, deep at its 
month, which forced its way through steep hills 
to the sea. But though he. like most of the 
naval adventurers of that age, was sailing west- 
ward in search of a shorter passage to India, he 
left this part of the coast ^vithout any attempt to 
ascend the river: nor can it be gathered from his 
narrative that he believed it to penetrate far into 
the interior. 

rsear a hundred years elapsed, beibre that great 
thought acquired form and substance. In the 
spring of 1609. the heroic but unfortunate Hud- 
son, one of the brightest names in the history 
of English maritime achievement, but then in 
the employment of the Dutch East Lidia Com- 
pany, in a vessel oi' eighty tons, bearing the very 
astronomical name of the "Half-moon." having 
been stopped by the ice in the polar sea, in the 
attempt to reach the East by the way of Tsova 
Zembla, struck over to the coast of America in 
a high northern latitude. He then stretched 
down south- westwardly to the entrance of Chesa- 
peake Bay, (of which he had gained a knowledge 
from the charts and descriptions of his friend. 
Capt. Smith,; — thence returning to the North, 
entered Delaware Bay. — standing out again to 



53 

sea arrived on the 2d of September in sight of 
the "high hills" of Neversink, pronouncing it 
*'a good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land 
to see," and on the following morning, sending 
his boat before him to sound the way, passed 
Sandy Hook, and there came to anchor, on the 
third of September, 1609; two hundred and forty- 
seven years ago, next Wednesday. What an 
event, my friends, in the history of American 
population, enterprise, commerce, intelligence 
and power, — the dropping of that anchor at 
Sandy Hook! 

Here he lingered a week, in friendly intercourse 
with the natives of New Jersey, while a boat's 
company explored the waters np to Newark Bay. 
And now the great question. Shall he turn back 
like Verazzano, or ascend the stream ? Hudson 
was of a race and in an employ, not prone to 
turn back, by sea or by land. On the 11th of 
September, he raised the anchor of the '* Half- 
moon," passed through the Narrows, beholding 
on both sides "as beautiful aland as one can 
tread on;" and floated cautiously and slowly up 
the noble stream, the first ship that ever rested 
on its bosom. He passed the Palisades, nature's 
dark basaltic Malakoff ; forced the iron gateway 



54 

of the Highlands, and anchored on the 14t!i, 
near West Point ; swept onward and upward the 

following day hy grassy meadows and tangled 
slopes, hereafter to be covered with smiling vil- 
lages; — by elevated banks and woody heights, 
the destined site of ftiture tow^ns and cities, — 
tot egregias urbes, — of TVewburg, Ponghkeepsie. 
Catskill; — on the evening of the 15th arrived 
opposite *'the mountains which he from the river 
side," where he found '' a very loving people and 
very old men;" and the day folloTving reached 
the spot, hereafter to be honored by his own 
illustrious name. One more day wafts him up 
between Schodac and Castleton, and here he 
landed and passed a day "with the natives, — 
greeted with all sorts of barbarous hospitahty, — 
the land " the finest for cultivation he ever set 
foot on," the natives so kind and gentle that, 
when they found he would not remain with them 
over night, and feared that he left them, — poor 
children of nature, — because he w^as afraid of 
their weapons, he, whose quarter deck v^' as heavy 
with ordnance, they ''broke their arrows in pieces 
and threw them in the fire." On the foUox^dng 
morning, with the early flood-tide, on the 19th 
of September, 1609, the Half-moon "ran higher 



55 

up two leagues above the Shoals," and came to 
anchor in deep water, near the site of the present 
city of Albany. Happy, if he could have closed 
his gallant career, on the banks of the stream 
which so justly bears his name, and thus have 
escaped the sorrowful and mysterious catastrophe 
which awaited him in the Arctic waters, the next 
year! 

But the discovery of your great river and of 
the site of your ancient city is not the only 
event, which renders the year 1609 memorable 
in the annals of America and the world. It 
was one of those years, in which a sort of sym- 
pathetic movement toward great results uncon- 
sciously pervades the races and the minds of 
men. While Hudson was exploring this mighty 
river and this vast region for the Dutch East 
India Company, Champlain, in the same year, 
carried the lilies of France to the beautiful lake 
which bears his name on your northern limits; 
— the languishing establishments of England in 
Virginia were strengthened by the second charter 
granted to that colony; — the little church of 
Robinson removed from Amsterdam to Leyden, 
from which, in a few years, they went forth, to 
lay the foundations of New England on Plymouth 



findkp — tifagsigwealMteJ ft i p>flMJi» rftfceBieA- 
«9iteMis^ afiear ttoiit temifie abi^^fe «^^rt^ j^CBB^p 



rf arL empire Je^ti^^ m tw^ 

leg: ii£l&e ■■■■mi iTiI^ Mnnn< _ : iit- 

M9*- le m*: - 7 : :e 

mS[ has^c ^ Typrrey. the 

olrtieaiL 
iHsJ nsnaiA mswu. 1 1 -i or annals, an 

'v^ idc ^ruxali ttiie mag:- 

SBBem- 






57 



town, in which Robinson made his melancholy 
Hegira from Amsterdam to Leyden, Galileo Gali- 
lei, with a telescope, the work of his own hands, 
discovered the phases of Venus and the satellites 
of Jupiter ; and now, after the lapse of less than 
two centuries and a half, on a spot then imbo- 
somed in the wilderness, the covert of some of 
the least civilized of all the races of men, we 
are assembled, descendants of the Hollanders, 
descendants of the Pilgrims, in this ancient and 
prosperous city, to inaugurate the establishment 
of a first class Astronomical Observatory. 

One more glance at your early history. Three 
years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Ply- 
mouth, (for I delight to trace these kindly syn- 
chronisms,) Fort Orange was erected, in the 
centre of what is now the business part of the 
city of Albany, and a few years later, the little 
hamlet of Beverswyck began to nestle under its 
walls. Two centuries ago, my Albanian friends, 
this very year, your forefathers assembled, not 
certainly to inaugurate an observatory, but to lay 
the foundations of a new church in the place of 
the rude cabin which had hitherto served them 
in that capacity. It was built at the intersection 
of Yonker's and Handelaar's, better known to 



Toa as State and Market streets. Pablic and 
private libeialitj co-opeiated in the important 
iroik. Hie authorities at the feat gaiFe fifteen 
hundred ^nildeis; — the Patroon of that earlj 
day, wth the liheraMiy ccexal noth the name 
and the race, eonmhut- ^ :^ "^" ~isand : — while the 
inhabitants, fin* irhose benent it was eieeted. 
irhoee nnmhers were small and their lesonrces 
smaller, sohscribed twenty beareTS, ""^ for the pur- 
chase of an oaken pal|Ht in Holland/' AYhether 
the lar^rest part of this subscription w^as bestow^ed 
by some liberal bene&ctress, tradition has not 
informed us. It has howcTer informed us, as I 
learned a ie^^ homs sin€!e fioni Mr. Godhead, 
that the corner-stone of the little church w^s 
laid by the Bct. Butter Jacobsen ; and that his^ 
daughter married Jan Jansen Eleecker^ from 
mrhom is lineally descended Mrs. Blandina 
Keecker Dudley, to w^hom w^e are so largely 
indebted for this day^s celebration. 

Kor is the year 1656 menwHable in the annals 
of Albany alone. In that same year your impe- 
rial metropohsv which had then recently been 
incorporated as a city by the name of Neir 
Amsterdam^ w^as first carefially surveyed by 
official authoritr^ and found to contain one bun- 



59 

dred and twenty houses and one thousand 
inhabitants.^ In eight years more New Nether- 
land becomes New- York ; Fort Orange, with its 
dependent hamlet, assumes the name of Albany; 
— a century of various fortune succeeds, — ^the 
scourge of French and Indian war is rarely 
absent from the land, — every shock of European 
policy vibrates with electric rapidity across the 
Atlantic, but the year 1756 finds a population of 
three hundred thousand in your growing pro- 
vince. Albany, however, may still be regarded 
almost as a frontier settlement. Of the twelve 
counties into which the province was divided a 
hundred years ago, the county of Albany com- 
prehended all that lay north and west of the 
citv ; and the citv itself contained but about 
three hundred and fifty houses. 

One more century ; another act in the great 
drama of empire ; another French and Indian 
war beneath the banners of England ; a success- 
ful revolution, of which some of the most 
momentous events occurred within your imme- 
diate neighborhood; a union of States ; a con- 



* These historical notices, relative to tlie discover}^ of the river by 
Hudson, and t?ie foundation of Albany, are for the most part abridged 
from Mr. Brodhead's excellent history of New-York. 



60 

stitution of federal government : your population 
carried to the St. Lawrence and the great Lakes, 
and their waters poured into the Hudson ; your 
territory" covered with a network of canals and 
railroads, filled with life, and action, and power, 
with all the works of peaceful art and prosperous 
enterprise, with all the institutions which con- 
stitute and advance the civilization of the age, 
its population exceeding that of the L^nion at the 
date of the Eevolution, yoiur own numbers twice 
as large as those of the largest city of that day, 
you have met together, my friends, just two 
hundred years since the erection of the httle 
church of Beverswyck, to dedicate a noble tem- 
ple of science, and to take a becoming pubhc 
notice of the establishment of an institution 
destined, as we trust, to exert a beneficial influ- 
ence on the progress of useful knowledge at 
home and abroad, and through that on the gene- 
ral cause of civilization. 

You will observe that I am careful to say the 
progress of science ''at home and abroad; " for 
the study of astronomy in this country, like that 
of many other branches of natural science, has 
long since, I am happy to add, passed that point 
where it is content to repeat the observations 



61 

and verify the results of European research. It 
has boldly and successfully entered the field of 
original investigation, discovery and speculation ; 
and there is not now a single department of 
the science in which the names of American 
observers and mathematicians are not cited by 
our brethren across the water, side by side with 
the most eminent of their European contempo- 
raries. 

This state of things is certainly recent. During 
the colonial period, and in the first generation 
after the Revolution, no department of science 
was, for obvious causes, very extensively culti- 
vated in America,- — astronomy perhaps as much 
as the kindred branches. The improvement in 
the quadrant commonly known as Hadley's had 
already been made at Philadelphia by Godfrey 
in the early part of the last century, and the 
beautiful invention of the collimating telescope 
was made at a later period by Eittenhouse, an 
astronomer of distinguished repute. The transits 
of Venus of 1761 and 1769 were observed in 
different parts of the country ; orreries, a favorite 
scientific toy in the last century, were constructed 
in Philadelphia and Boston; and some respecta- 
ble scientific essays are contained and valuable 



62 

observations are recorded in the early volumes 
of the transactions of the Philosophical Society 
at Philadelphia, and the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences at Boston and Cambridge. 
But in the absence of a numerous class of men 
of science to encourage and aid each other, in 
a state of the country as yet too poor to extend a 
liberal patronage to the expensive arts, without 
observatories and without valuable instruments, 
little of importance could be expected in the 
higher walks of astronomical research. 

The greater the credit due for the achievement 
of an enterprise commenced in the early part of 
the present century, and which would reflect 
honor on the science of any country and any 
age, I mean the translation and commentary on 
haplsice^ s Mecanique Celeste, by Bowditch; a work 
whose merit I am myself wholly unable to 
appreciate, but which I have been led to think 
places the learned translator and commentator 
on a level with the ablest astronomers and 
geometers of the day. This work may be con- 
sidered as opening a new era in the historv of 
American science. The country was still almost 
wholly dehcient in instrumental power ; but the 
want was generally felt by men of science, and 



63 

tlie public mind in various parts of the Union 
began to be turned towards the means of sup- 
plying it. In 1825, President John Quincy 
Adams brought the subject of a National Obser- 
vatory before congress. Political considerations 
prevented its being favorably entertained at that 
time; and it was not till 1842, and as an inci- 
dent of the exploring expedition, that an appro- 
priation was made for a depot for the charts and 
instruments of the navy. On this modest basis 
has been reared the National Observatory at 
Washington; an institution which has already 
taken and fully sustains an honorable position 
among the scientific establishments of the age. 
Besides the institution at Washington, fifteen 
or tAventy observatories have, within the last few 
years, been established in different parts of the 
country, some of them on a modest scale for the 
gratification of the scientific taste and zeal of 
individuals, others on a broad foundation of 
expense and usefulness. In these establishments, 
public and private, the means are provided for 
the highest order of astronomical observation, 
research, and instruction. There is already in 
the country an amount of instrumental power 
(to which addition is constantly making), and of 



64 

nedtiieiiiatieal aftill <3fi m^ D?rt of our men of 
scieiice, adequate to a maniy c<»iipei]ticML ^with 
liieir Eknnpean cxmi^iipfHaiies in astronomy and 
idle iHanehes oi sdeiiee liiecHettieal and affiled 
ccmnedted willi it- Hie pioceedii^js of the pr- - r „ 
meetixr :: ^i-^ .--^r-r-Tican Association folly justify 
tdiis leinajifc- ~::^ fhaits are already befote the 
wodd in the Iziangnlation of sewesal of the 
SMe^ in the great wim^ ^ the coast sorwey^ in 
the nomeioas scientific sorFeys of the inteiioi* 
of the cmfin^Bt, in Ihe astronomical department 
of t r r r . expeditikm, in the SMHe iccmt 

scie:.' z -eziyi :_:::: Ji to Chili; — in tke brilliant 
hyd: r: :. .: ueal laboi^ of tbe obserratoiy at 
WasMiioton; in the pnblislied observations of 
WashingtMi and Camlsid^; in the general 
dbaiacter of the c<mlI£1iIs of tbe jonmal con- 
docfed by the ]Seslor of Ai-_:t: : : : :;_ iScience, now 
in its ^^Ih Instnmt, of the Sideieal JJessengf^*, 
and the Astroimnical Jtminal; in the Nati<»ial 
Ephemeris; in Ihe sieat chroniMnetrical expedi- 
licins to detenuine Ihe Imgitode of Ckmbrid^, 
betlteT ascertained tban Ibat of Paris was tiU 
within the la^ year; in the prompt rectification 
of Ihe erwM^ in the pvedicled ctenents of A'ep- 
tane^ in its identification with Lalande^s misdng 



65 

star, and in the calculation of its ephemeris ; in 
the discovery of the satellite of Neptune, of the 
eighth satellite of Saturn, and of the innermost 
of its rings; in the establishment, both by obser- 
vation and theory, of the non-solid character of 
Saturn's rings; in the recent remarkable specu- 
lations on the nature of the Zodiacal light; in 
the separation and measurement of many double 
and triple stars, amenable only to superior instru- 
mental power; in the immense labor already 
performed in preparing Star Catalogues, and in 
numerous accurate observations of standard stars ; 
in the diligent and successful observation of the 
meteoric showers; in an extensive series of 
magnetic observations; in the discovery of an 
asteroid and ten or twelve telescopic comets (the 
latter not the achievement of the stronger sex 
alone) ; in the resolution of nebulae, which have 
defied every thing in Europe but Lord Rosse's 
great Reflector; in the application of electricity 
to the measurement of differences in longitude, 
in the corrected ascertainment of the velocity of 
the electro-magnetic fluid, and its truly wonder- 
ful uses in recording astronomical observations. 
These are but a portion of the achievements of 
American astronomical science within fifteen or 



66 

twenty years, and fully justily the most sanguine 
anticipations of its further progress. 

HoTT far our astronomers may be able to pur- 
sue their researches, will depend upon the 
resources of our public institxitions, and the 
liberahty of wealthy individuals in furnishing 
the requisite means. With the exception of the 
observatories at Washington and West Point, 
little can be done or expected to be done by the 
government of the Union or the States ; but in 
this, as in every thing else connected with the 
patronage of art and science, the great depen- 
dence, and may I not add the sate dependence, 
as it ever has been, must continue to be upon 
the bounty of enlightened, liberal, and public- 
spirited individuals. 

It is by a signal exercise of this bounty, my 
friends, that we are called together to-day. The 
munificence of several citizens of this ancient 
city, among whom the lirst place is due to the 
generous lady, livhose name has with great pro- 
priety been given to the institution, has ftirnished 
the means tor the foundation of the Dudley 
Observatory at Albany. On a commanding ele- 
vation, on the northern edge of the city, liberally 
given for that purpose by the head of a lamily 



^7 

fVan Rensselaer) in which the patronage of 
science is hereditary, a building of ample dimen- 
sions has been erected, upon a plan which com- 
bines all the requisites of solidity, convenience, 
and taste. A large portion of the expense of the 
structure has been defrayed by Mrs. Blandina 
Dudley, to whose generosity, and that of several 
other public spirited individuals, the institution 
is also indebted for the provision which has been 
made for an adequate supply of first- class instru- 
ments, executed and to be executed by the most 
eminent makers in Europe and America; and 
which, it is confidently expected, will yield to 
none of their class in any observatory in the 
world. ^ 

With a liberal supply of instrumental power; 
established in a community to whose intelligence 
and generosity its support may be safely confided, 
and whose educational institutions are rapidly 
realizing the conception of a university; counte- 
nanced by the gentleman who conducts the 
United States Coast Survey with such scientific 
skill and administrative energy, and by the men 



* For this description of the Dudley Observatory, I am indebted to a 
valuable article on American Observatories by Professor Loomis in Har- 
per's Magazine for June. 1856, p. 49. 



7? 



—T"^ ' ^r® Ike IwiiMwiiF ' ^ ^ n anlio- 



rf 



Ac ediior of tfte JjoMiirii i n !al JiUHr- 

flsri, kas ^MPmm Unneif t : 

a<ju au5 % , Ac PmiIIi j dfan^T^::,^^ at A1Ihb.j .i.^;;^- 
ttribes ite jhrr Maapg Ac saaiiiic fiMndbtiaBS 
of Ithe cxMHliy auid Ifae iwiHii- 

BtisBD mttodlssA. iMwItfittj nAiA leads me to 
CLi|Hie!Wife tAie ic^iel; Idhai: Kids Jnieiisftiii^ 
cxmM msA hmwwt takssm. ^ka^^ ^r^^^^^ 
aSksemSL waspkBeas. I feet tttiafi; mt dai^ of 
adUR9H»rtftB|-iiat aMl cslidbieKd aasEnUr, 
dHHinsn^ a» nmcii of Idbe inftEPigeMce rf Ac 

i ~ T :«T - 1 ^ ^^-ar hgaiL awMgiail j; 1i»ft it 

. .:4M]r ai imkgmm. I aee 
- . - Iffisnt lisien^ Ar 




69 

the depths of the heavens, or mathematicians, 
whose analysis unthreads the maze of their 
wondrous mechanism. If, instead of command- 
ing, as you easily could have done, qualifications 
of this kind, your choice has rather fallen on one, 
making no pretensions to the honorable name of 
a man of science, — but whose delight it has 
always been to turn aside from the dusty and 
thankless paths of active life, for an interval of 
recreation in the green fields of sacred nature in 
all her kingdoms, — it is, I presume, because you 
have desired, on an occasion of this kind, neces- 
sarily of a popular character, that those views of 
the subject should be presented which address 
themselves to the general intelligence of the 
community, and not to its select scientific circles. 
For astronomy perhaps to a greater extent, than 
any other department of natural science, exhibits 
phenomena, which, while they task the highest 
powers of philosophical research, are also well 
adapted to arrest the attention of minds barely 
tinctured with scientific culture, and even to 
touch the sensibilities of the wholly uninstructed 
observer. The profound investigations of the 
chemist into the ultimate constitution of material 
nature, the minute researches of the physiologist 



70 

into the secrets of animal life, the transcendental 
logic of the geometer bristling in a notation, the 
very sight of which terrifies the uninitiated, are 
lost on the common understanding. But the 
unspeakable glories of the rising and the setting 
sun; the serene majesty of the moon, as she walks 
in full-orbed brightness through the heavens; the 
soft witchery of the morning and the evening 
star; the imperial splendors of the firmament on 
a bright unclouded night ; the comet, whose 
streaming banner floats over half the sky, — ^these 
are objects which charm and astonish alike the 
philosopher and the peasant; — the mathemati- 
cian who Aveighs the masses and defines the 
orbits of the heavenly bodies, and the untutored 
observer who sees nothing beyond the images 
painted upon the eye. 

An astronomical observatory, in the general 
acceptation of the word, is a building erected for 
the reception and appropriate use of astronom- 
ical instruments, and the accommodation of the 
men of science employed in making and reducing 
observations of the heavenly bodies. These 
instruments are mainly of three classes, to which 
I believe all others of a strictly astronomical 
character may be referred. 



71 

> 1st. The instruments by which the heavens 
are inspected, with a view to discover the 
existence of those celestial bodies which are not 
visible to the naked eye, (beyond all comparison 
more numerous than those which are,) and to 
observe the magnitude, shapes and other sensible 
qualities, both of those which are and those which 
are not thus visible to the unaided sight. The 
instruments of this class are designated by the 
general name of Telescope; and are of two 
kinds; — the refracting telescope, which derives 
its magnifying power from a system of convex 
lenses; and the reflecting telescope, which 
receives the image of the heavenly body upon 
a concave mirror. 

2d. The second class of instruments consists 
of those, which are designed principally to 
measure the angular distances of the heavenly 
bodies from each other, and their time of passing 
the meridian. The transit instrument, the meri- 
dian circle, the mural circle, the heliometer, and 
the sextant belong to this class. The brilliant 
discoveries of astronomy are for the most part 
made with the first class of instruments; — its 
practical results wrought out by the second. 

3d. The third class contains the clock, with its 



72 

subsidiary apparatus for measuring the time and 
marking its subdivisions, with the greatest possi- 
ble accuracy; — indispensable auxiliary of all 
the instruments, by which the positions and 
motions of the heavenly bodies are observed, and 
measured, and recorded. 

The telescope may be likened to a wondrous 
Cyclopean eye, endued with superhuman power, 
by which the astronomer extends the reach of 
his vision to the further heavens, and surveys 
galaxies and universes compared with which the 
solar system is but an atom floating in the air. 
The transit may be compared to a measuring rod 
which he lays from planet to planet and from 
star to star, to ascertain and mark off the 
heavenly spaces, and transfer them to his note- 
book. The clock is the marvellous apparatus by 
which he equalizes and divides into nicely 
measured parts a portion of that unconceived 
infinity of duration, without beginning and 
without end, in which all existence floats as on 
a shoreless and bottomless sea. 

In the contrivance and the execution of these 
instruments, the utmost stretch of inventive skill 
and mechanical ingenuity has been put forth. 
To such perfection have they been carried, that 



73 

a^single second of magnitude or space is rendered 
a distinctly visible and appreciable quantity. 
**The arc of a circle," says Sir J. Herschel, 
*' subtended by one second, is less than the two 
hundred thousandth part of the radius, so that 
on a circle of six feet in diameter, it would 
occupy no greater linear extent than 5 Voo part 
of an inch; a quantity requiring a powerful 
microscope to be discerned at all."^ The largest 
body in our system, the sun, whose real diameter 
is 882,000 miles subtends, at a distance of 
95,000,000 miles, but an angle of a little more 
than 32"; while so admirably are the best instru- 
ments constructed, that both in Europe and 
America, a satellite of Neptune, an object of 
comparatively inconsiderable diameter, has been 
discovered at a distance of 2,850 millions of 
miles. 

The object of an Observatory, erected and 
supplied with instruments of this admirable 
construction and at proportionable expense, is, as 
I have already intimated, to provide for an accu- 
rate and systematic survey of the heavenly bodies, 
with a view to a more correct and extensive 



*HerschePs Outlines of Astronomy, § 131. 
10 



74 

acquaintance with those already known, and as 
instrumental power and skill in using it increase, 
to the discovery of bodies hitherto invisible, and 
in both classes of objects to the determination 
of their distances, their times of passing the 
meridian, their relations to each other, and the 
laws which govern their moTements. 

Why should w^e wish to obtain this know- 
ledge ? What inducement is there to expend 
large sums of money in the erection of Observa- 
tories, in furnishing them with costly instru- 
ments, and in the support of the men of science 
employed in making, discussing, and recording, 
for successive generations, these minute observa- 
tions of the heavenly bodies? 

In an exclusively scientific treatment of this 
subject, an inquiry into its utilitarian relations 
would be superfluous, — even wearisome. But 
on an occasion like the present, you will not, 
perhaps, think it out of place, if I briefly answer 
the question what is the use of an astronomical 
observatory, and what benefit may be expected 
from the operations of such an establishment in 
a community like ours? 

I. In the first place, then, w^e derive from the 
observations of the heavenlv bodies w^hich are 



75 

made at an observatory, our only adequate 
measures of time and our only means of com- 
paring the time of one place with the time of 
another. Our artificial timekeepers — clocks, 
watches, and chronometers — however ingeni- 
ously contrived and admirably fabricated, are 
but a transcript, so to say, of the celestial 
motions, and would be of no value without the 
means of regulating them by observation. It is 
impossible for them under any circumstances to 
escape the imperfection of all machinery, the 
work of human hands ; and the moment we 
remove with our timekeeper east or west, it fails 
us. It will keep home time alone, like the fond 
traveller who leaves his heart behind him. The 
artificial instrument is of incalculable utility, 
but must itself be regulated by the eternal clock- 
work of the skies. 

This single consideration is sufficient to show 
how completely the daily business of life is 
affected and controlled by the heavenly bodies. 
It is they and not our main-springs, our expan- 
sion balances, and our compensation pendulums, 
which give us our time. To reverse the line of 
Pope, — 

'Tis with oar watches as our judgments; none 
Go just alike, but each believes his own ; — 



76 

But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues 
of men, — each upon their own meridian, — from 
the Arctic pole to the equator, from the equator 
to the Antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes 
twelve at noon, and the glorious constellations, 
far up in the everlasting belfries of the skies, 
chime twelve at midnight; — twelve for the pale 
student over his flickering lamp, tv^'elve amid 
the flaming wonders of Orion's belt, if he cros- 
ses the meridian at that fated hour; — twelve by 
the wear^' couch of lansruishing" humanitv, twelve 
in the star-paved courts of the Empyrean; — 
twelve for the heaving tides of the ocean : twelve 
for the wear}^ arm of labor; twelve for the toil- 
ing brain; twelve for the watching, waking-, 
broken heart; twelve for the meteor which 
blazes for a moment and expires ; twelve for the 
comet whose period is measured by centuries; 
twelve for everv substantial, for everv imao^inarv 
thing, which exists in the sense, the intellect, or 
the fancy, and which the speech or thought of 
man, at the given meridian, refers to the lapse 
of time. 

Not only do we resort to the obser^-ation of 
the heavenly bodies for the means of regulating 
and rectifying our clocks, but the great divisions 



77 

of day and month and year are derived from the 
same source. By the constitution of our nature 
the elements of our existence are closely con- 
nected with the celestial times. Partly by his 
physical organization, partly by the habit, — 
second nature, — of the race from the dawn of 
creation, man as he is and the times and seasons 
of the heavenly bodies are part and parcel of 
one system. The first great division of time, 
the day-night (nychthemerum), for which we have 
no precise synonym in our language, with its 
primal alternation of waking and sleeping, of 
labor and rest, is a vital condition of the exis- 
tence of such a creature as man. The revolution 
of the year, with its various incidents of summer 
and winter and seed-time and harvest, is not less 
involved in all our social material and moral 
progress. It is true that at the poles and on the 
equator, the effects of these revolutions are 
variously modified or wholly disappear, but as 
the necessary consequence, human life is extin- 
guished at the poles, and, on the equator attains 
only a languid or feverish development.^ Those 
latitudes only, in which the great motions and 

* Guyot, Earth and Man, p. 231, et seq. 



78 

cardinal positions of the earth exert a mean 
influence, exhibit man in the harmonious expan- 
sion of his powers. The lunar period, which 
lies at the foundation of the month, is less vitally 
connected with human existence and develop- 
ment ; but is proved by the experience of every 
age and race to be eminently conducive to the 
progress of civilization and culture. 

But indispensable as are these heavenly mea- 
sures of time to our life and progress, and obvi- 
ous as are the phenomena on which they rest, 
yet, owing to the circumstance that, in the 
economy of nature, the day, the month, and the 
year are not exactly commensurable, some of 
the most difficult questions in practical astro- 
nomy are those, by which an accurate division 
of time, applicable to the various uses of man, 
is derived from the observation of the heavenly 
bodies. I have no doubt that, to the Supreme 
Intelligence which created and rules the uni- 
verse, there is a harmony hidden to us in the 
numerical relation to each other of days, months, 
and years ; but in our ignorance of that har- 
mony, their practical adjustment to each other 
is a work of difficulty. The great embarrass- 
ment which attended the reformation of the 



79 

calendar, after the error of the Julian period had, 
in the lapse of centuries, reached ten, (or rather 
twelve) days, sufficiently illustrates this remark. 
It is most true that scientific difficulties did not 
form the chief obstacle. Having been proposed 
under the auspices of the Roman Pontiff', the 
protestant w^orld, for a century and more, rejected 
the new style. It was in various places the sub- 
ject of controversy, collision, and bloodshed."^ 
It was not adopted in England till nearly two 
centuries after its introduction at Rome ; and in 
the country of the Struves and the Pulkova 
equatorial, they persist at the present day, for 
civil purposes, in adding eleven minutes and 
twelve seconds to the length of the tropical year. 
II. The second great practical use of an 
Astronomical Observatory is connected with the 
science of Geography. The first page of the 
history of our continent illustrates this connec- 
tion. Profound meditation on the sphericity of 
the earth was one of the main reasons which led 
Columbus to undertake his momentous voyage, 
and his thorough acquaintance with the astrono- 
mical science of that day was, in his own judg- 

* Stern's Himraelsknnde. p. 72. 



80 

ment, what enabled him to overcome the almost 
innumerable obstacles which attended its prose- 
cution.^ In return, I find that Copernicus, in 
the very commencement of his immortal work,f 
appeals to the discovery of America as complet- 
ing the demonstration of the sphericity of the 
earth. Much of our knowledge of the figure, 
size, density, and position of the earth as a 
member of the solar system is derived from this 
science, and it furnishes us the means of per- 
forming the most important operations of practi- 
cal geography. Latitude and longitude, which 
lie at the basis of all descriptive geography, are 
determined by observation. No map deserves 
the name, on which the position of important 
points has not been astronomically determined. 
Some even of our most important political and 
administrative arrangements depend upon the 
co-operation of this science. Among these I may 
mention the land-system of the United States, 
and the determination of the boundaries of the 
country. 

I believe that till it was done by the Federal 
Government, a uniform system of mathematical 

* Humboldt, Histoire de la geographic, etc. Tom I. p. 17. 
t Copernicus, de Eevolutionibus orbium coelestiura, Fol. 2. 



81 

survey had never in any country been applied to 
an extensive territory. Large grants and sales 
of public land took place before the Revolution 
and in the interval between the peace and the 
adoption of the Constitution ; but the limits of 
these grants and sales were ascertained by sensi- 
ble objects, by trees, streams, rocks, hills, and by 
reference to adjacent portions of territory, previ- 
ously surveyed. The uncertainty of boundaries 
thus defined was a never- failing source of litiga- 
tion. Large tracts of land in the Western 
country granted by Virginia, under this old sys- 
tem of special and local survey, were covered 
with conflicting claims, and the controversies to 
which they gave rise formed no small part of the 
business of the Federal Court after its organiza- 
tion. But the adoption of the present land- 
system brought order out of chaos. The entire 
public domain is now scientifically surveyed 
before it is offered for sale ; it is laid off into 
ranges, townships, sections, and smaller divisions 
with unerring accuracy, resting on the founda- 
tion of base and mieridian lines; — and I have 
been informed that under this system, scarce a 
case of contested location and boundary has ever 

presented itself in court. The general land-office 
11 



^2 

contains maps and plans, in which even- quar- 
ter-section of the public land is laid down with 
mathematical precision. The superficies of half 
a continent is thus transferred in miniature to 
the bureaus at "Washington: — ^while the local 
land-offices contain transcripts of these plans, 
copies of which are furnished to the indiTidual 
purchaser. "VMienwe consider the tide of popu- 
lation annually flowing into the public domain, 
and the immense importance of its efficient and 
economical administration, the utility of this 
application of astronomy will be duly estimated.* 
I Tvill here venture to repeat an anecdote "which 
I heard lately from a son of the late Hon, Timothy 
Pickering. Mr. Octavius Pickering, on behalf 
of his lather, had applied to Mr. David Pumam 
of Marietta, to act as his legal adviser, with 
respect to certain land claims in the Virginia 
military district, in the State of Ohio. Mr. 
Putnam declined the agency. He had had much 
to do with business of that kind and found it 
beset with endless litigation. "T have never," 
he adds, -succeeded but in a single case, and 
that was a location and survey made by General 

* S«* aa aixide on the Public Laud? br the antLc^r oi tiiis Address, 
Amcrkaui Almanae for 18S2. p. 14-5. 



83 

Washington before the Revolution, and I am not 
acquainted with any surveys, except those made 
by him, but what have been litigated." 

At this moment, a most important survey of 
the coast of the United States is in progress; 
an operation of the utmost consequence, in 
reference to the geography, commerce, naviga- 
tion, and hydrography of the country. The 
entire work, I need scarce say, is one of practical 
astronomy. The scientific establishment which 
we this day inaugurate is looked to for important 
co-operation in this great undertaking ; — and will 
no doubt contribute efficiently to its prosecution. 

Astronomical observation furnishes by far the 
best means of defining the boundaries of States, 
when the lines are of great length and run 
through unsettled countries. Natural indications 
like rivers and mountains, however distinct in 
appearances, are in practice subject to unavoid- 
able error. By the treaty of 1783, a boundary 
was established between the United States and 
G-reat Britain, depending partly on the course of 
rivers and upon the highlands dividing the 
waters which flow into the Atlantic Ocean from 
those which flow into the St. Lawrence. It took 
twenty years to find out which river was the true 



!>4 

St. Croix, that bein? the startinfr point. Ecgland 
then having made the extraordinary diseorery 
that the Bay of Fundy is not a part of the Atlantic 
Ocean, forty years more were passed in the 
nnsuccessfol attempt to re-create the Highlands 
Turhich this strange doctrine had annihilated; and 
just as the two countries ^rere on the verge of a 
war, the controversy was settled hy compromise. 
Had the boundary been accurately described by 
lines of latitude and longitude, no dispute could 
have arisen. ]!so dispute arose as to the boundary 
between the United States and Spain, and her 
successor, Mexico, where it runs through untitxl- 
den deserts, and orer pathless mountains, along 
the forty-second degree of latitude. The identity 
of rivers may be disputed as in the case of the 
St. Croix : the course of mountain chains is too 
iHoad for a dividing line ; the division of streams, 
as experience has shown, is uncertain, but a 
degree of latitude is written on the heavenly 
sphere : and nothing but an observation is requi- 
red to read the record . 

But scientific elements, like shaip instruments, 
must be handled lurith care. A part of our 
boundary between the British Provinces ran upon 
the forty-fith degree of latitude ; and about tbrty 



85 

years ago, an expensive fortress was commenced 
by the government of the United States at 
Rouse's Point on Lake Champlain, on a spot 
intended to be just within our limits. When the 
line came to be more carefully surveyed the 
fortress turned out to be on the wrong side; we 
had been building an expensive fortification for 
our neighbor. But in the general compromises 
of the treaty of Washington by the Webster and 
Ashburton Treaty of the 9th of August, 1842, the 
fortress was left within our limits.^ 

Errors still more serious had nearly resulted a 
few years since in a war with Mexico. By the 
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, of the 2d of Feb- 
ruary, 1848, the boundary line between the 
United States and that country was in part 
described by reference to the town of El Paso, as 
laid down on a specified map of the United 
States, of which a copy was appended to the 
treaty. This boundary was to be surveyed and 
run by a joint commission of men of science. It 
soon appeared that errors of two or three degrees 
existed in the projection of the map. Its lines 
of latitude and longitude did not conform to the 
topography of the region; so that it Avas impos- 

* Webster's Works, Vol. T. pp. 110. 115. 



m 

sLUe Id execoie the test €if the tiealhr. Hie 
£iiiioiis MesQla TaDey -was a part of Ihe : r : : - - 
ble ground, and the smn of ten mill: 
dcdlais paid to the liexican govcxnment 
and fiir an additionfal ^bip of texiifoiy ::. -':.^ 
sootlt-'wesf, wa^ ZL.e sy.\ ?, ji-iBoi^ey i^hMi expixiLovi^ 
the inaccmacf of '!:^ nxsp; T:.r i.T:r-s:r^- rr^::"^ 
peifa^s of the : good : . : f : : . 5 : - 

ocMftStTactioii Tri. u. :__:::;. 5 :: ::„:-,:.- 
ha^e gone s r : ; 1 " " 17 " ; "" : : " - t - 1 ::<t ::. -t : : 1 
MatHHual CJi:> t :"" r "" ' :"" :: r. :.. 1 r.;. : :• oi iii<t coiiii- 
nent, CMistr:: : ' ~ i 1 r :;. ■"_: t :-. : ^jacy. 

_" T .. f :.. ~ :: : . nHy? in Liondwi, a few 
7 f : r T Z itiA govemm^it fiw 

tiHL over M>e ^ I ^ nd. The official GazeUe fiir 
Ihe M of ' T r, 1S40, was sent me fiom the 
Foieign c 5 : ^ ~ ling the desiied infi»ma- 

lifiML. Ti..-- _ J. ..... -7 : : : The Gtaxietbe fMHitained the 

piocla: . "T = 11 'i3f the lieofenant-^ovemor 
of JNIe" -It . pmsnance of Hie instrae- 

liot lie M»qaess of Mar- 

ntSLi- ^ : : -~ : _ I ^ ^ 7 s pnncipaL Secieta- 

lics ^'f >i^i^. ^i^ssciijij^ die jmisdicKion of his 
go^r t orer the i^amds of Iffeur Zealand, 

anc I: ' -^"ig Ihem to extend ^'fasBa. Ihirty-fiNir 



87 

degrees thirty minutes north, to forty-seven 
degrees ten minutes south latitude." It is 
scarcely necessary to say, that south latitude was 
intended in both instances. This error of sixty- 
nine degrees of latitude, which would have 
extended the claim of British jurisdiction over 
the whole breadth of the Pacific, had apparently 
escaped the notice of that government. 

It would be easy to multiply illustrations of the 
great practical importance of accurate scientific 
designations drawn from astronomical observa- 
tion, in various relations connected with bounda- 
ries, surveys, and other geographical purposes; 
but I must hasten to 

III. A third important department, in which 
the services rendered by astronomy are equally 
conspicuous. I refer to commerce and naviga- 
tion. It is chiefly owing to the results of 
astronomical observation, that modern commerce 
has attained such a vast expansion, compared 
with that of the ancient world. I have already 
reminded you that accurate astronomical notions 
contributed materially to the conception in the 
mind of Columbus of his immortal enterprise, 
and to the practical success with which it was 
conducted. It was mainly his skill in the use of 



88 

astronomical instranients, imperfect as theyirere, 
\«^hicli enabled him, in spite of the oewildering 
Yanations of the compass, to find his way across 
the ocean. 

With the progress of the troe system of the 
nniYcrse towards general adoption, the problem 
of findiTig the longitude at sea presented itself. 
This was the aTo^wed object of the foundation 
of the Observatory at Grreenwich,* and no one 
snbject has received more of the attention of 
astronomers tban tliose iiiT^estigations of the 
lunar theory, n which the reqiiis're 'al»les of 
the navigator c :t : : t . The path^ra ; - : : the 
ocean are maikeci : :.: in the sky above. The 
eternal ligl^ts c: the heavens are the only Pltaros 
^vhose beams never 1011; . :a no tempest can 
shake from its foundation. A^ it Lin my recollec- 
tion, it was deemed a nece-^ :y qualification for 
the master and the mate 01 a merchant-ship, 
and even for a prime hand, to be able to **^work 
a Itmar," as it Tvas called- TJ- i: :t : : enients 

* Gramt's ti : ^ : : :^~ : :' ? 1 7^ = : : ;, " J_; : : : ii-^iaiy-, p. 450. 

tThe&M: 1- _ _ : -=.d in BartHt Zadi's Carres^im- 

d>mce .Itlromomnqme^ Vol. IV. p. 62. It; is a pait of tJ]ie Baiit>i£''s accoioii 
<tf his Tifflt to CUopmtrm't Bmrge, ^duch entered flie harbor oi G^noa in 
1817. The B«nm was told hy the psopiidOT and cornmandw of the 
Ti^^^, HiMt his Mac^ cook could find the ship's l<Migitnde Jsy ohsezration. 
'" * There he is/ said the Tonn^: maun, pointing to a ne^ro at the stern of 



89 

in the chronometer have in practice, to a great 
extent, superseded this laborious operation, but 
Observation remains, and unquestionably will 
for ever remain, the only dependence for ascer- 
taining the ship's time and deducing the longi- 
tude from the comparison of that time with the 
chronometer. 

It may perhaps be thought that astronomical 
science is brought already to such a state of 
perfection that nothing more is to be desired, or 
at least that nothing more is attainable in 
reference to such practical applications as I have 
described. This, however, is an idea which 

the vessel, in his white apron, with a fowl in one hand, and a dressing- 
knife in the other. ' Come here John,' cried the captain, ' this gentleman 
is surprised at your calculating the longitude; tell him about it.' Zach. 
What method do you employ in calculating the longitude by lunar dis- 
tances ? The Cook. It is indifferent to me. I make use of the method 
of Maskelyne, Lyons, of Witchell, and of Bowditch- but I prefer Dun- 
thorne, with which I am more familiar and which is shorter.' I could 
not express my surprise at language like this from a black cook, with a 
bleeding fowl in one hand; and a larding-knife In the other." 

Dr. Bowditch in early life, was supercargo of a vessel trading to the 
East. His captain, being asked, on one occasion, at Manilla, how he had 
contrived to find his way, in the face of a north-east monsoon, by mere 
dead reckoning, replied, " that he had a crew of twelve men, every one 
of whom could take and work a lunar observation as well, for all practi- 
cal purposes, as Sir Isaac Newton himself, were he alive." During this 
conversation. Dr. Bowditch sat, " as modest as a maid, saying not a 
word, but holding his slate pencil in his mouth," while another person 
remarked that, " there was more knowledge of navigation on board that 
ship, than there was in all the vessels that have floated in Manilla Bay." 
— Memoir of Dr. Bowditch, by Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, p. 29. 
12 



g-enerons mie ds -will ireject, in tfliis as in cvciy 
other deputment of linnum knowledge. In 
aisfmnomj, as in eTeiylhii^ eke, the d]sc»^^ 
already made, tibemefieal or piacitical, instead of 
eslianslin^ Ae science, or potiins: a limit to its 
adrancemeiBt, do hat Ibmish llie means and 
instminents ©f fartlie: TrogresB. I liai^ no 
doTil: "t live cha the veise of discoweties and 
inTentions m eT^rr ct^: :-.:_.. rut, as Iwilliant as 
any that liave ^e^e:" l>?^n made; lliat tliexe aie 
new' tmlbs, Ef ■ ^ : f : : 7 to start into leeo^ 

nitiCHi oa. ev€z" -lie; and it serans to me theie 
never wtbs an : r t _:: : e the daum rf time, 'when 
men ©mg-lit to oe .es^s dispt^ed to lest satined 
witli the p]rc^i<e^ alieady made, tlian the ^e in 
whicli ^we Irre ; lor theie never was an a^ moie 
^sfingni^ed fm in^enions leseaieh, fer novel 
result and boM geneialization. 

Th^t no imttheT imp^oTement is d^imUe in 
::.T means andniethodsof asicextainiii^lhe^i^s 
place at sesu, no one I think w^ill fimn expediraice 
be disposed to asseit. _ t §t tinie I erossed 
the Atlantic, I ^walked :iiT : ^^PT-deck ividi 
the ojfficer in cliai^ rf tl t : : t t ^-=1, on cme 
occasicm, 'when we were :::": . r : :r refine a 
leading breeze aed imd'er a head rf sfeanu 



91 

beneath a starless sky at midnight, at the 
rate certainly of ten or eleven miles an hour. 
There is something sublime, but approaching the 
terrible, in such a scene; the rayless gloom, the 
midnight chill, the awful swell of the deep, the 
dismal moan of the wind through the rigging, 
the all but volcanic fires within the hold of the 
ship; — I scarce know an occasion in ordinary 
life in which a reflecting mind feels more keenly 
its hopeless dependence on irrational forces be- 
yond its own control. I asked my co mpanion how 
nearly he could determine his ship's place at sea 
under favorable circumstances. Theoretically, 
he answered, I think, within a mile ; practically 
and usually within three or four. My next ques- 
tion was, How near do you think we may be to 
Cape Race? — that dangerous headland which 
pushes its iron-bound, unlighted bastions from 
the shore of Newfoundland far into the Atlantic, 
first land-fall to the homeward-bound American 
vessel.^ We must, said he, by our last observa- 
tions and reckoning, be within three or four miles 
of Cape Race. A comparison of these two 
remarks, under the circumstances in which we 



* Since the voyage in question was made (in 1845) , a light house has 
been built on Cape Race. 



92 

were placed at the ixioment, brought my mind to 
the conclusion, that it is greatly to be wished 
that the means should be discovered of finding 
the ship's place more accurately, or that navi- 
gators would give Cape Race a little wider berth. 
Still I do not remember that one of the steam- 
packets between England and America was ever 
lost upon that formidable point. 

It appears to me by no means unlikely that, 
with the improvement of instrumental power, 
and of the means of ascertaining the ship's time 
with exactness, as great an advance beyond the 
present state of art and science in finding a ship's 
place at sea may take place, as was effected by 
the invention of the reflecting quadrant, the 
calculation of lunar tables, and the improved 
construction of chronometers. 

In the wonderful versatility of the human 
mind, the improvement, when it takes place, 
will very probably be made by paths where it is 
least expected. The great inducement of Mr. 
Babbage to attempt the construction of an engine, 
by which astronomical tables could be calculated, 
and even printed by mechanical means and with 
entire accuracy, was the errors in the requisite 
tables. Nineteen such errors, in point of fact, 



93 

T^ere discovered in an edition of Taylor's loga- 
rithms printed in 1796 ; some of which might 
have led to the most dangerous results in calcu- 
lating a ship's place. These nineteen errors (of 
which one only was an error of the press) were 
pointed out in the Nautical Almanac for 1832. 
In one of these errata the seat of the error was 
stated to be in cosine of 14^ 18' 3"". Subsequent 
examination showed that there was an error of 
one second in this correction, and accordingly 
in the Nautical Almanac of the next year a new 
correction was necessary. But in nriaking the 
new correction of one second, a new error was 
committed of ten degrees. Instead of cosine 14° 
18' 2", the correction was printed cosine 4° 18' 2", 
making it still necessary, in some future edition 
of the Nautical Almanac, to insert an erratum in 
an erratum of the errata in Taylor's Logarithms.^ 
In the hope of obviating the possibility of such 
errors, Mr. Babbage projected his calculating, or, 
as he prefers to call it, his difference machine. 
Although this extraordinary undertaking has 
been arrested in consequence of the enormous 
expense attending its execution, enough has been 
achieved to show the mechanical possibility of 

* Edinburgh Review, Vol. LIX. p. 282. 



94 

constractmg an engine of this kind, and eren 
one of fer higher po\rers, of \rhich Mr. Babbage 
has matmed the conception, demised the notation, 
and executed in part the drawings, — themselves 
an imperishable monument of the genius of the 
author. 

I happened on one occasion to be in company 
with this higblr distingoished man of science, 
^rhose social qualities aie as pleasing as his con- 
structive talent is marvellous, when another 
eminent stmant, Comit Strzelecki, just lenimed 
fiom his Oriental and Australian tour, observed 
that he found among the Chinese a great desiie 
to know something more of ^h. E ge's 
calculating machine, and e^speciaiiT whether 
like their own smanpan it could be made to go 
into the pocket. Mr. Babbage good-humoredly 
observed that thus for he had been very much 
out of pocket with it- 
Whatever advances may be made in astronomi- 
cal science, theoretical or appUed. I am strongly 
inclined to think that they will be made in con- 
nection with an increased command of instru- 
mental power. The natural order in which the 
human mind proceeds in the acquisition of 
astronomical know^ledge, is minute and ac citrate 



\ 



95 

observation of the phenomena of the heavens, 
the skilful discussion and analysis of these obser- 
vations, and sound philosophy in generalizing 
the results. 

In pursuing this course, however, a difficulty 
presented itself, which for ages proved insuper- 
able, and which to the same extent has existed 
in no other science, namely, that all the leading 
phenomena are in their appearance delusive. It 
is indeed true that in all sciences, superficial 
observation can only lead, except by chance, to 
superficial knowledge ; but I know of no branch 
in which, to the same degree as in astronomy, 
the great leading phenomena are the reverse of 
true, while they yet appeal so strongly to the 
senses, that sagacious philosophers in antiquity 
who could foretell eclipses, and who discovered 
the precession of the equinoxes, still believed 
that the earth was at rest in the centre of the 
universe, and that all the hosts of heaven 
performed a daily revolution about it as a centre. 

It usually happens in scientific progress, that 
when a great fact is at length discovered, it 
approves itself at once to all competent judges. 
It furnishes a solution to so many problems and 
harmonizes with so many other facts, that all the 



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97 

aoute and learned Arabian or mediaeval astrono- 
mers. All their ingenuity and all their mathe- 
matical skill were exhausted in the development 
of a wonderfully complicated and ingenious but 
erroneous theory. The great master truth, reject- 
ed for its simplicity, lay, disregarded, at their 
feet. 

At the second dawn of science, the great fact 
again beamed into the mind of Copernicus. Now, 
at least, in that glorious age which witnessed the 
invention of printing, the great mechanical 
engine of intellectual progress, and the discovery 
of America, we may expect that this long hidden 
revelation, a second time proclaimed, will com- 
mand the assent of mankind. But the sensible 
phenomena were still too strong for the theory; — 
the glorious delusion of the rising and the setting 
sun could not be overcome. Tycho de Brahe 
furnished his observatory with instruments supe- 
rior in number and quality to all that had been 
collected before ; but the great instrument of dis- 
covery, which, by augmenting the optic power of 
the eye, enables it to penetrate beyond the appa- 
rent phenomena and to discern the true constitu- 
tion of the heavenly bodies, was wanting at 

Uranienburg. The observations of Tycho, as 
13 



9s 

discussed by Keppler, conducted that most ibrv id, 
powerlul. and sagacious mind to the discovery of 
some of the most important laws of the celestial 
motions; but it was not till Galileo, at Florence, 
had pointed his telescope to the sky, that the 
Copernican system could be said to be firmly 
established in the scientific world.* 

On this great name, my friends, assembled as 
we are to dedicate a temple to instrumental 
Astronomy, we may well pause for a moment. 

There is much, in every way, in the city of 
Florence to excite the curiositv', to kindle the 
imagination, and to gratity the taste. Sheltered 
on the north by the vine-clad hills of Fiesole, 
whose Cyclopean walls carry back the antiquary 
to ages before the Roman, before the Etruscan 
power, the fiowery city (Fiorenza) covers the 
snmiy banks of the Arno with its stately palaces. 
Dark and frowning piles of mediaeval structure, 
a majestic dome the prototype of St. Peter's, 
basilicas which enshrine the ashes of some of 
the mightiest of the dead, the stone where Dante 
stood to gaze on the campanile, the house of ^Michael 

• It is another interesting coincidence of erents in the rear 1609,. that 
Keppler^s works de Motu Martis and ^istronooiia Aiora. in which his two 
first laws are propounded, appeared in thi> vear. I am ir-jlebred for thi'i 
si^gestian to Dr. B. A. Gonld. 



99 

Angelo still occupied by a descendant of his 
lineage and name, — his hammer, his chisel, his 
dividers, his manuscript poems, all as if he had 
left them but yesterday; — airy bridges which seem 
not so much to rest on the earth as to hover over 
the waters they span; — the loveliest creations of 
ancient art, rescued from the grave of ages again 
to " enchant the world ;" — the breathing marbles 
of Michael Angelo, the glowing canvas of Raphael 
and Titian ;^ — museums filled with medals and 
coins of every age from Cyrus the younger, and 
gems and amulets and vases from the sepulchres 
of Egyptian Pharaohs coeval with Joseph, and 
Etruscan Lucumons that swayed Italy before the 
Romans; — libraries stored with the choicest texts 
of ancient literature ;— gardens of rose and orange 
and pomegranate and myrtle ; — the very air you 
breathe languid with music and perfume, — such 
is Florence. But among all its fascinations 
addressed to the sense, the memory, and the 
heart, there was none to which I more frequently 
gave a meditative hour during a year's residence, 
than to the spot where Galileo Galilei sleeps 
beneath the marble floor of Santa Croce; no 
building on which I gazed with greater reverence, 
than I did upon the modest mansion at Arcetri, 



100 

villa at once and prison, in which that venerable 
sage, by command of the Inquisition, passed the 
sad closing years of his life : the beloved daugh- 
ter on whom he had depended to smooth his 
passage to the grave laid there before him ; the 
eyes wdth which he had discovered worlds before 
unknown, quenched in blindness : — 

AMme ! quegli occhi si son fatti oscuri, 
Che Tider piu di tntti i tempi antichi, 
E Inee far dei secoli faturi. 

That was the house "where," says Milton, 
(another of those of whom the world was not 
worthy,) " I found and visited the famous Gahleo, 
grown old, — a prisoner to the Inquisition, for 
thinking on astronomy, other^^ise than as the 
Dominican and Franciscan licensers thought."^ 
Great heavens ! what a tribunal, what a culprit, 
what a crime !• Let us thank God, my friends, 
that we live in the nineteenth century. Of all 
the wonders of ancient and modern art, statues 
and paintings, and jewels and manuscripts, the 
admiration and the delight of ages, — there was 
nothing which I beheld with more afiectionate 
awe, than that poor rough tube, a few feet in 
length, the work of his ot\ti hands, that very 

• Milton's Prose Works, Vol. I. p. S15. 



101 

"optic glass" through which the " Tuscan Artist" 
viewed the moon, 

''At evening from the top of Fesole 
Or in Yaldarno, to descry new lands, 
Kivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe:" 

that poor little spy-glass (for it is scarcely more) 
through which the human eye first distinctly 
beheld the surface of the moon, — first discovered 
the phases of Yenus, the satellites of Jupiter, and 
the seeming handles of Saturn, — first penetrated 
the dusky depths of the heavens, — first pierced the 
clouds of visual error, which from the creation of 
the world involved the system of the Universe. 

There are occasions in life in which a great 
mind lives years of rapt enjoyment in a moment. 
I can fancy the emotions of Galileo, when first 
raising the newly constructed telescope to the 
heavens, he saw fulfilled the grand prophecy of 
Copernicus, and beheld theplanet Venus crescent 
like the moon. It was such another moment as 
that when the immortal printers of Mentz and 
Strasburg received the first copy of the Bible into 
their hands, the work of their divine Art; — like 
that when Columbus, through the gray dawn of 
the 12th October, 1492, (Copernicus, at the age 
of eighteen, was then a student at Cracow,)^ 

* Kopernik et ses Travaux, par Jean Czynski, p. 29. 



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103 

discoveries now, but the tioie will come when 
from two hundred observatoiies in Europe and 
America the glorious artillery of science shall 
nightly assault the skies, but they shall gain no 
conquests in those glittering fields before which 
thine shall be forgotten. Rest in peace, great 
Columbus of the heavens, like him scorned, 
persecuted, broken hearted; in other ages, in 
distant hemispheres, when the votaries of science, 
with solemn acts of consecration, shall dedicate 
their stately edifices to the cause of knowledge 
and truth, thy name shall be mentioned with 
honor ! 

It is not my intention, in dwelling with such 
emphasis upon the invention of the telescope to 
ascribe undue importance, in promoting the 
advancement of science, to the increase of 
instrumental power. Too much, indeed cannot 
be said of the service rendered by its first appli- 
cation in confirming and bringing into general 
repute the Copernican system ; but for a conside- 
rable time, little more was effected by the 
wondrous instrument, than the gratification of 
curiosity and taste by the inspection of the 
planetary phases, and the addition of the rings 
and satellites of Saturn to the solar family. 



104 

Newton, prematurely despairing ol any farther 
improvement in the refracting telescope, applied 
the principle of reflection, and the nicer observa- 
tions now made, no doubt hastened the maturitv 
of his great discovery of the law of gravitation; 
but that discover}- was the work of his transcen- 
dent 2:enius and consummate skill. 

With Bradley in 1741. a new period com- 
menced in instrumental astronomy, not so much 
of discovery as of measurement.'*' The superior 
accuracy and minuteness, with which the 
motions and distances of the heavenly bodies 
were now observed, resulted in the accumulation 
of a mass ot new materials both for tabular 
comparison and theoretical speculation. These 
materials tbrmed the enlarged basis ot' astro- 
nomical science between Xewton and ."^ir A^ illiam 
Herschel. His gigantic rellectors introduced the 
astronomer to regions ot' space belbre unvisited, 
extended beyond all previous conception the 
range of the observed phenomena, and with it 
proportionably enlarged the range ot constructive 

• Dr. Bowditoh, in his admirable article in the Sorth American Review. 
Vol. XX. p. 310. The value of Bradlev's observations may be estimated 
from the labor bestowed upon their reduction by Bessel as late as 1818, 
iu his ** fundamenta astronomise pro anno MDCCLV. deducta ex observa- 
tionibns viri ineomparabilii James Bradley.'* 



105 

tlneory. The discovery of a new primary planet 
and its attendant satellites was but the first step 
of his progress into the labyrinth of the heavens. 
Contemporaneously with his observations, the 
French astronomers, and especially La Place, 
with a geometrical skill scarcely if at all inferior 
to that of its great author, resumed the whole 
system of Newton, and brought every phenome- 
non observed since his time within its laws. 
Difficulties of fact with which he struggled in 
vain, gave way to more accurate observations, 
and problems that defied the power of his analysis 
yielded to the modern improvements of the 
calculus. 

But there is no ultima Thule in the progress of 
science. With the recent augmentations of 
telescopic power, the details of the nebular 
theory proposed by Sir W. Herschel with such 
courage and ingenuity have been drawn in 
question. Many — most — of those milky patches 
in which he beheld what he regarded as cosmical 
matter, as yet in an unformed state, — the rudi- 
mental material of worlds not yet condensed, — 
have been resolved into stars as bright and dis- 
tinct as any in the firmament. I well recall the 
glow of satisfaction, with which on the 22d of 



106 

September, 1847, being then connected with 
the University at Cambridge. I received a letter 
from the venerable director of the observatory 
there, beginning with these memorable words : 
" You will rejoice with me that the great nebula 
in Orion has yielded to the powers of our in- 
comparable telescope I ... It should be 
borne in mind, that this nebula, and that of 
Andromeda [which has been also resolved at 
Cambridge] are the last strongholds of the nebu- 
lar theory."* 

But if some of the adventurous speculations 
built by Sir "W'ilham Herschel on the bewildering 
revelations of his telescope have been since 
questioned, the vast progress which has been 
made in sidereal astronomy, (to which, as I 
understand, the Dudley Observator}' will be 
particularly devoted,) the discovery of the paral- 
lax of the fixed stars, the investigation of the 
interior relations of binary and triple systems of 
stars, the theories for the explanation of the 
extraordinary, not to say fantastic, shapes dis- 
cerned in some of the nebulous systems, — whirls 
and spirals radiating through spaces as vast as 

* Anuals of the Observatory of Harvard College, p. cxxi. 



107 

the orbit of Neptune,^ — the glimpses at systems 
beyond that to which our sun belongs, — these 
are all splendid results, which may fairly be 
attributed to the school of Herschel, and will 
forever insure no secondary place to that name 
in the annals of science. f 

In the remarks which I have hitherto made, I 
have had mainly in view the direct connection 
of astronomical science with the uses of life and 
the service of man. But a generous philosophy 
contemplates the subject in higher relations. It 
is a remark as old as least as Plato, and is repeated 
from him more than once by Cicero, that all the 
liberal arts have a common bond and relationship. J 
The different sciences contemplate as their imme- 
diate object the different departments of animate 
and inanimate nature ; but this great system 
itself is but one. Its various parts are so inter- 
woven with each other, that the most extra- 
ordinary relations and unexpected analogies are 

* See the remarkable memoir of Professor Alexander, " on the origin 
of the forms and the present condition of some of the clusters of stars, 
and several of the Nebulae." — Gould's Astronomical Journal, Vol. III. 
p. 95. 

t For an analysis of the progressive views of Sir "W. Herschel on the 
Sidereal system, see Etudes d* Astronomie Stellaire, par F. G. W. 
Struve, pp. 23-44. 

t Archias, § 1; de Oratore, Lib. III. § 21, 



108 

constantly presenting themselves: and arts and 
sciences seemingly the least connected; render to 
each other the most effectiye assistance. 

The history of electricity, galyanism, and 
magnetism, furnishes the most striking illustration 
of this remark. Commencing with the meteoro- 
logical phenomena of our own atmosphere, and 
terminating with the observation of the remotest 
heayens, it may yreU be adduced on an occasion 
like the present. Franklin demonstrated the 
identity of lightning and the electric fluid. This 
discovery gave a great impulse to electrical 
research, with httle else in view but the means 
of protection from the thundercloud. A purely 
accidental circumstance led the physician Galvani 
at Bologna to trace the mysterious element, under 
conditions entirely novel both of development 
and appUcation. In this new form, it became, in 
the hands of Davy, the instrument of the most 
extraordinary chemical operations; and earths 
and alkalis, touched by the creative wire, started 
up into metals that float on water, and kindle in 
the air. At a later period, the closest affinities 
are observed between electricity and magnetism, 
on the one hand ; while on the other, the relations 
of polarity are detected between acids and alkalis. 



109 

Plating and gilding henceforth become electrical 
processes. In the last applications of the same 
subtle medium, it has become the messenger of 
intelligence across the land and beneath the sea; 
and is now employed by the astronomer to ascer- 
tain the difference of longitudes, to transfer the 
beats of the clock from one station to another, 
and to record the moment of his observations 
with automatic accuracy. How large a share 
has been borne by America in these magnificent 
discoveries and applications, among the most 
brilliant achievements of modern science, will 
sufficiently appear from the repetition of the 
names of Franklin, Henry, Morse, Walker, 
Mitchell, Lock, and Bond. 

It has sometimes happened, whether from the 
harmonious relations to each other of the different 
departments of science, or from rare felicity of 
individual genius, that the most extraordinary 
intellectual versatility has been manifested by 
the same person. Although Newton's transcen- 
dent talent did not blaze out in childhood, yet as 
a boy he discovered great aptitude for mechanical 
contrivance. His water-clock, self-moving vehicle, 
and mill were the wonder of the village ; the 
latter propelled by a living mouse. Sir David 



110 

Brewster represents the accounts as difteriiig. 
whether the mouse was mace ".o advance "by a 
strins: attached to its tail,'' or by '' its unavailins" 
attempts to reach a portion of com placed above 
the Aviiee.. ■ It seems more reasonable to con- 
clude that the youthlitl discoverer ol the law of 
gravitatioii intended, by the combination of these 
opposite attractions. ". : : : duce a balanced move- 
ment. It is consojing :>: t-if average mec._': ::::y 
of the race to perceive in these sportive essays, 
that the mind of \ewTon passed through the 
stage of boyhood. But emerging from boyhood, 
wha: :. :-jund it made as :::m earth to heaven I 
Soon after commencing Bachelor of arts, at the 
age of twenty-four, he im.twisted the golden and 
silver threads of T:i^ ^:dsr ^^'e'/^riim ; simulta- 
neously, or soon after, conceived the method of 
fluxions: and arrived a.". :■:- e^-:::en:al idea of 
universal gravity, before he had passed to his 
Masters deo-ree."^ Master of arts, indeed I That 
degree, if no other, was well bes^oved. Universi- 
ties are unjustly accused of lixing science in 
stereotype. That d:V'_':'ma is en':ug-i -: ::-^if to 
redeem the honors of academical parchment 

* Sir Dairid Prewstei's Life of Wewton. chapter HI. 



Ill 

from centuries of learned dulness and scholastic 
dogmatism. 

But the great object of all knowledge is to 
enlarge and purify the soul, to fill the mind with 
noble contemplations, and to furnish a refined 
pleasure. Considering this as the ultimate end 
of science, no branch of it can surely claim 
precedence of astronomy. No other science 
furnishes such a palpable embodiment of the 
abstractions which lie at the foundation of our 
intellectual system; the great ideas of time, and 
space, and extension, and magnitude, and num- 
ber, and motion, and power. How grand the 
conception of the ages on ages required for 
several of the secular equations of the solar 
system; of distances from which the light of a 
fixed star would not reach us in twenty millions 
of years ;^ of magnitudes compared with which 
the earth is but a football; of starry hosts, suns 
like our own, numberless as the sands on the 
shore ; of worlds and systems shooting through 
the infinite spaces, with a velocity compared 
with which the cannon-ball is a way-worn, heavy- 
paced traveller ! 



Nichol's Architecture of the Heavens, p. 160. 



112 

Much, howev^ as we aie indebted to oar 
obseiTatories for eleTatin^ our conceptions of the 
heaTenl J bodies, they joesent eTen to the nnaided 
sight scenes of glory w^hieh irords are too fee": r 
to describe. I had occa^cm^ a few w^eeks sioce, 
to take the early train frcon Providence to Boston; 
and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the 
morning . Every thing aronnd was wrapt in daik- 
ness and hushed in i^ence, bioken only by what 
seemed at that hour the xmeartlily clank and ru^ 
of the train. It was a nii>d, sei e ne, oiidsommer' s 
ni^t, — the sky was without a clond, — Ihe winds 
were w^hist. The moon, then in the last quarter, 
had just risen, and the stars shone 'with a ^lectral 
lustre bat little affected by her presence. J^iter, 
two hoars high, was the herald of the day; the 
Pleiades just aboTe the horizon shed their sweet 
inflaence in the east; Lyra spaikled near the 
zeoilh; Andromeda veiled her newly-discorered 
glories from the naked eye in the sooth; the 
steady pointers far beneath the pole looked 
meekly up from the depths of the north to their 
sovereign. 

Snch was the glorions ^leclacle as I entered 
the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach 
of twilight became more perceptible; the intense 



113 

bhie of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars 
like little children, went first to rest; the sister- 
beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but 
the bright constellations of the west and north 
remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous 
transfiguration went on. Hands of angels hidden 
from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the 
heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the 
glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned 
more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up 
their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint 
streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; 
the whole celestial concave was filled with the 
inflowing tides of the morning light, which came 
pouring down from above in one great ocean of 
radiance ; till at length, as we reached the Blue 
Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above 
the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of 
flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a 
few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning 
were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, 
arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, 
began his state. 

I do not wonder at the superstition of the 
ancient Magians, who in the morning of the 

world went up to the hill tops of Central Asia, 
15 



114 

and ignorant of the true God, adored the most 
glorious work of his hand. But I am filled with 
amazement, when I am told that in this en- 
lightened age, and in the heart of the Christian 
world, there are persons who can witness this 
daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of 
the Creator, and yet say in their hearts, " there 
is no God." 

Numerous as are the heavenly bodies visible 
to the naked eye, and glorious as are their 
manifestations, it is probable that in our own 
system there are great numbers as yet undis- 
covered. Just two hundred years ago this year, 
Huyghens announced the discovery of one satel- 
lite of Saturn, and expressed the opinion that the 
six planets and six satellites then known, and 
making up the perfect number of twelve, composed 
the whole of our planetary system.^ In 1729, 
an astronomical writer came to the conclusion 
that there might be other bodies in our system, 
but that the limit of telescopic power had been 
reached, and no further discoveries were likely 
to be made.-f The orbit of one comet only had 

* Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Series, 
Vol. III. p. 282. 

t Admiral Smyth's Celestial Cycle, Vol. I. p, 198. 



115 

been definitively calculated. Since that time the 
power of the telescope has been indefinitely- 
increased; — two primary planets of the first 
class, ten satellites/^ and forty-three small planets 
revolving between Mars and Jupiter have been 
discovered, the orbits of six or seven hundred 
comets, some of brief period, have been ascer- 
tained ; — and it has been computed that hundreds 
of thousands of these mysterious bodies wander 
through our system. There is no reason to think 
that all the primary planets which revolve about 
the sun, have been discovered. An indefinite 
increase in the number of asteroids may be 
anticipated; while outside of Neptune, between 
our sun and the nearest fixed star, supposing the 
attraction of the sun to prevail through half the 
distance, there is room for ten more primary 
planets, succeeding each other at distances 
increasing in a geometrical ratio. The first of 
these will unquestionably be discovered as soon 
as the perturbations of Neptune shall have been 
accurately observed; — and with maps of the 
heavens, on which the smallest telescopic stars 

* This compntation of the number of satellites discovered since 1729 
assumes six as the number of those of Uranus. See J. E. Hind's Solar 
System. ]k 175. 



116 

are laid down, anv one of them may be dis- 
covered much sooner.^ 

But it is when we turn onr observation and 
our thoughts irom our own system, to the svstems 
which lie beyond it in the heavenly spaces, that 
we approach a more adequate conception of the 
vastness of Creation. All analogy teaches us 
that the sun which gives Hght to us is but one of 
those countless stellar fixes which deck the firma- 
ment, and that every glittering star in that 
shining host is the centre of a system, as vast 
and as full of subordinate luminaries as our o^vn. 
Of these suns, — centres of planetary systems, — 
thousands are visible to the naked eye, milKons 
are discovered by the telescope. Sir John 
Herschel, in the account of his operations at the 
Cape of Good Hope,! calculates that about five 
and a half millions of stars are visible enough to 
be distinctly cotmfed in a twenty foot reflector in 
both hemispheres. He adds that "the actual 
number is much greater, there can be little 
doubt.'' His illustrious father estimated on one 
occasion that 1 -20. 000 stars passed through the 

• Lerenrier, Co-mpte Rendu, atth Oct. 1846. p. 6o9. Proceedings of 
Ameriean Academy of Arts and Sciences. Tol. I. p. 178. 

t Resnlts of Astronomical Obserratinns mad** dnrtn?: tbe vears 1 8.34-8, 
at the Cape of Go«xl Hope. p. 381. 



117 

field of his forty foot reflector in a quarter of an 
hour. This would give 12,000,000 for the entire 
circuit of the heavens, in a single telescopic zone ; 
and this estimate was made under the assump- 
tion that the nebulae were masses of luminous 
matter not yet condensed into suns. 

These stupendous calculations, however, form 
but the first column of the inventory of the 
universe. Faint white specks are visible even to 
the naked eye of a practised observer in different 
parts of the heavens. Under high magnifying 
powers, several thousands of such spots are 
visible, — no longer, however, faint white specks, 
but many of them resolved by powerful tele- 
scopes into vast aggregations of stars, each of 
which may with propriety be compared with 
the milky way of our system. Many of these 
nebulae, however, resisted the power of Sir Wm. 
Herschel's great reflector, and were accordingly 
still regarded by him as masses of anformed 
luminous matter. This, till a few years since, 
was perhaps the prevailing opinion,- — and the 
nebular theory filled a large space in modern 
astronomical science. But with the increase of 
instrumental power, especially under the mighty 
grasp of Lord Rosse's gigantic reflector and the 



lis 

great refractors at Pulkova and Cambridge, the 
most irresolvable of these nebulae have given 
way : and the better opinion now is, that everv 
one of them is a galaxy, Kke our own milky wav, 
composed of millions of suns. In other T^^ords, 
we are brought to the be^vildering concJusion, 
that thousands of these misty specks, the s^reater 
part of them too faint to be seen by the naked 
eye, are, not each a universe like our solar system, 
but each a ••swarm" of universes of unappre- 
ciable magnitude.* The mind sinks over- 
powered by the contemplation. Vs'e repeat the 
"words, but they no longer convey distinct ideas 
to the understanding. 

But these conclusions, however vast their 
comprehension, carry us but another step forward 
in the realms of sidereal astronomy. A proper 
motion in space of our sun and of the fixed stars, 
as T\'e call them, has long been believed to exist. 
Their vast distances only prevent its being more 
apparent. The great improvement which has 
taken place in instruments of measurement 
within the last generation, has not only estab- 
lished the existence of this motion but has 
pointed to the region in the starry vault, around 

• Hnniboldt's Cosmos. Vol. TTT, p. 44.0tte-8 Tranalation. 



119 

which our whole solar and stellar system, with 
its myriad of attendant planetary worlds, appears 
to be performing a mighty revolution. If, then, 
we assume that outside of the system to which 
we belong, and in which our sun is but a star 
like Aldebaran or Sirius, the different nebulte of 
which we have spoken, thousands of which spot 
the heavens, constitute each a distinct family of 
universes, we must, following the guide of 
analogy, attribute to each of them also, beyond 
all the revolutions of their individual attendant 
planetary systems, a great revolution, compre- 
hending the whole; while the same course of 
analogical reasoning would lead us still further 
onward, and in the last analysis, require us to 
assume a transcendental connection between all 
these mighty systems,- — a universe of universes, 
circling round in the infinity of space, and pre- 
serving its equilibrium by the same laws of 
mutual attraction, which bind the lower worlds 
together.^ 

It may be thought that conceptions like these 
are calculated rather to depress than to elevate 

* For popular views of the present state of science in the department 
of sidereal astronomy, see Sir John Herschel's Outlines. Part III.; Him- 
melskunde volksfasslich bearbeitet von M. A. Stern, pp. 258-319; and 
Etudes d' astronomic Stellaire, par F. G. W. Struve. 



120 

us in the scale of being; that banished as he is 
by these contemplations to a corner of creation, 
and there reduced to an atom, man sinks to 
nothingness in this infinity of worlds. But a 
second thought corrects the impression. These 
vast contemplations are vvell calculated to inspire 
awe, but not abasement. Mind and matter are 
incommensurable. An immortal soul, even 
while clothed in '-this muddy vesture of decay," 
is in the eye of G-od and reason, a purer essence 
than the brightest sun that lights the depths of 
heaven. The organized human eye, instinct 
with life and spirit, which, gazing through the 
telescope, travels up to the cloudy speck in the 
handle of Orion's sword, and bids it blaze forth 
into a galaxy as vast as ours, stands higher in 
the order of being than all that host of lumina- 
ries. The intellect of Xewton. which discovered 
the law that holds the revohiug worlds together, 
is a nobler work of God than a universe of 
universes of unthinking matter. 

If still treading the loftiest paths of analogy, 
we adopt the supposition. — to me I own the 
grateful supposition. — that the coimtless planet- 
ary worlds which attend these countless suns, 
are the abodes of rational beings like man. 



121 

instead of bringing back from this exalted con- 
ception a feeling of insignificance, as if the 
individuals of our race were but poor atoms in 
the infinity of being, I regard it, on the contrary, 
as a glory of our human nature, that it belongs 
to a family which no man can number, of 
rational natures like itself. In the order of being 
they may stand beneath us, or they may stand 
above us; he may well be content with his place 
who is made "a little lower than the angels.""^ 

Finally, my friends, I believe there is no con- 
templation better adapted to awaken devout 
ideas than that of the heavenly bodies; no 
branch of natural science which bears clearer 
testimony to the power and wisdom of God, 
than that to which you this day consecrate a 
temple. The heart of the ancient world, with 
all the prevailing ignorance of the true nature 
and motions of the heavenly orbs, was religiously 
impressed by their survey. There is a passage in 
one of those admirable philosophical treatises of 
Cicero, composed in the decline of life, as a solace 
under domestic bereavement and patriotic concern 

* For some interesting views of the controversy which had its origin in 
the ingenious Essay " of the Plurality of Worlds," see Professor Baden 
Powell's '' Essays on the spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of 
Worlds, and the Philosophy of Creation.'' 

16 



122 

at the impending convulsions of the State, in 
whichj quoting from some lost work of Aristotle, 
he treats the topic in a manner which almost 
puts to shame the teachings of Christian wis- 
dom : — 

" Praeclare ergo Aristoteles, 'si essent,' inquit, 
qui sub terra semper habitavissent, bonis et 
illustribus domiciliis quse essent ornata signis 
atque picturis, instructaque rebus iis omnibus, 
quibus abundant ii qui beati putantur, nee tamen 
exissent unquam supra terram; accepissent autem 
fama et auditione, esse quoddam numen et vim 
Deorum; deinde aliquo tempore, patefactis terrse 
faucibus, ex ilhs abditis sedibus evadere in haec 
loca quae nos incolimus, atque exire potuissent; 
cum repent e, terram, et maria, ccelumque vidis- 
sent; nubium magnitudinem, ventorumque vim 
cognovissent, aspexissentque solem, ejusque turn 
magnitudinem pulchritudinemque, tum etiam 
efficientiam cognovissent, quod is diem efficeret, 
toto ccelo luce diffusa; cum autem terras nox 
opacasset, tum coelum totum cernerent astris 
dis tine tum et ornatum, lunseque luminum vari- 
etatem tum crescentis tum senescentis, eorum- 
que omnium ortus et occasus, atque in seternitate 
ratos immutabilesque cursus ; haec cum viderent. 



123 

profecto et esse Deos, et hsec tanta opera Deorum 
esse arbitrarentur.'"^ 

" Nobly does Aristotle observe, that if there were 
beings who had always lived under ground, in 
convenient, nay, magnificent dwellings, adorned 
with statues and pictures, and every thing which 
belongs to prosperous life, but who had never 
come above ground,^ — who had heard, however, 
by fame and report, of the being and power of 
the gods,^ — if at a certain time, the portals of the 
earth being thrown open, they had been able to 
emerge from those hidden abodes to the regions 
inhabited by us; when suddenly they had seen 
the earth, the seas, and the sky; had perceived 
the vastness of the clouds and the force of the 
winds; had contemplated the sun, his magnitude 
and his beauty, and still more his effectual power, 
that it is he who makes the day by the difiusion 
of his light through the whole sky; and when 
night had darkened the earth, should then behold 
the whole heavens studded and adorned with 
stars, and the various lights of the waxing and 
waning moon, the risings and the settings of all 
these heavenly bodies, and their courses fixed 

* Cicero de Natiira Deorum, Lib. II. § 30. 



124 

and immutable in all eternity; when, I say, they 
should see these things, truly they would believe 
that there are gods, and that these, so great things, 
are their works." 

There is much by day to engage the attention 
of the observatory ; the sun, his apparent motions, 
his dimensions, the spots on his disc, (to us the 
faint indications of movements of unimagined 
grandeur in his luminous atmosphere,) a solar 
eclipse, a transit of the inferior planets, the 
mysteries of the spectrum; all phenomena of 
vast importance and interest. But night is the 
astronomer's accepted time; he goes to his 
delightful labors when the busy world goes to its 
rest. A dark pall spreads over the resorts of 
active life ; terrestrial objects, hill and valley, and 
rock and stream, and the abodes of men disap- 
pear; but the curtain is drawn up which con- 
cealed the heavenly hosts. There they shine 
and there they move, as they moved and shone 
to the eyes of Newton and Galileo, of Keppler 
and Copernicus, of Ptolemy and Hipparchus; 
yea, as they moved and shone when the morning 
stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy. All has changed on earth ; but 
the glorious heavens remain unchanged. The 



125 

plough passes over the site of mighty cities, the 
homes of powerful nations are desolate, the 
languages they spoke are forgotten; but the stars 
that shone for them are shining for us ; the same 
eclipses run their steady cycle ; the same equi- 
noxes call out the flowers of spring and send the 
husbandman to the harvest; the sun pauses at 
either tropic as he did when his course began ; 
and sun and moon, and planet and satellite, and 
star and constellation and galaxy, still bear 
witness to the power, the wisdom, and the love 
which placed them in the heavens, and upholds 
them there. 



LETTER AND SCHEDULE 



OF THE 



SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL. 



Thomas ^Y. Olcott, Esq., 

Dear Sir : The time has at length arrived, when it becomes 
our duty to consider in what way the munificent investment, 
which has been made in the Observatory, shall be improved to 
its intended purpose. The generous appropriation for instru- 
ments has been most happily expended, and an astronomical 
apparatus of unrivalled perfection and completeness has been 
secured ; one which it will rejoice the heart of the observer 
merely to contemplate, and which has attracted to the capitol of 
your State the regards of the whole world of science. The care 
of this great treasure is a serious responsibility and a weight of 
trust, which cannot be honestly undertaken without a distinct 
perception of the possibility of its performance. After a careful 
and critical examination of the expenses of the establishment, 
we find that the Observatory cannot be creditably conducted for 
less than ten thousand dollars of annual outlay. The special de- 
tails of the investigation are contained in the accompanying 
schedule, in whicL you will perceive that the personiicl is reduced 
to its minimum in every respect, and that no farther reduction 
is in any way permissible. Rather than undertake the conduct 
of the Institution for a smaller sum of money, it would be de- 
cidedly advisable that the instruments should lie idle for a time, 
in the company of too many noble telescopes of America. But, 



X3S 




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129 



tiojiery, the materials for supplying the batteries, and other inci- 
dental expenses, might be estimated at $1,500. 

There then remains to be considered, the providing a library, 
which for the first years would require a considerable sum, and 
subsequently, say an average annual expenditure of $500. 

The expenses of publication are not taken into account, as it 
has been intimated that these might be met from other resources. 

These considerations show that $12,000 is a moderate esti- 
mate for the annual outlay of a first class observatory, and that 
to restrict it to $10,000 would only be possible by means of the 
closest economy, and by enlisting gratuitous aid in addition to 
that required for the expenses of publications. 



/'• 



INAUGURATION 



J 



OF THE 



DUDLEY OBSEEVATORY, 



AT 



ALBANY, AUGUST 28, 1856. 



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